Basin Cleanup Bill Lacking Cost Sen. Craig Hopes To Introduce Plan For Restoration By Dec. 15

The state of Idaho would be in charge. Federal taxpayers and mining companies would pay the bill.

Those are the terms of the Coeur d’Alene Basin Environmental Restoration Act of 1995, which Sen. Larry Craig plans to introduce in December. But at the moment, there are two notable blank spaces in the draft legislation.

It doesn’t say how much companies or the public would pay to clean up a century’s worth of contamination from Silver Valley mines.

“It’s somewhat open now,” said Craig’s chief of staff, Greg Casey, who was in North Idaho on Thursday and Friday to explain the legislation.

Among those who pressed for more information about funding was Bob Bostwick, press secretary for the Coeur d’Alene Tribe.

“Would it be in the hundreds of millions?” asked Bostwick.

“It ain’t the tens of thousands,” countered Casey.

The tribe once proposed a cleanup plan that would have cost up to $1 billion. Estimates being tossed around now range from $145 million to $500 million, with mining companies looking eagerly for a lower bottom line.

Cleanup cost estimates must be made before the bill can be introduced in Congress. Casey hopes that will be before Dec. 15, when this session of Congress adjourns. That will get the legislation on the congressional hearing schedule for early next year.

Craig will take comment on the 16-page draft bill until Dec. 11. Casey emphasized that there will be plenty of opportunity for public input after the bill is introduced, including a field hearing in North Idaho.

The exchange between Casey and Bostwick took place at a Thursday night meeting of the citizens advisory committee of the Coeur d’Alene Basin Restoration Project. On Friday, Craig’s staff members met with commissioners from Kootenai, Shoshone and Benewah counties.

The bill they heard about calls for:

Setting up a commission to oversee cleanup.

Ten of its 13 members, to be appointed by the governor, would represent the state Division of Environmental Quality; state Fish and Game Department; one official each from Kootenai, Benewah and Shoshone counties; one member of the Silver Valley Trustees, a group overseeing certain ongoing efforts; two members of the general public, and one representative each from the mining industry and another, undesignated industry.

In addition, there would be one representative from the Environmental Protection Agency; one from either the department of Agriculture or Interior; and one from the Coeur d’Alene Tribe.

An action plan. It would include reduction of discharges from historic mines, and the isolation, capping or removal of mine tailings - in both cases, “to the extent appropriate and feasible.”

There is much disagreement over how much cleanup is appropriate. Mining companies point out that the landscape has been naturally healing in the decades since mining practices improved. Extremely expensive cleanup measures aren’t necessary and could even be destructive, they say. At the other end of the spectrum is the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, which is pushing hard for a thorough and more expensive restoration.

Under Craig’s bill, the cleanup plan would also include riverbank stabilization, and improvement of habitat to limit exposure of fish and wildlife to heavy metals. The lead poisoning of tundra swans has been the most visible sign of such exposure.

Establish a trust fund, which would include the federal and industry dollars. As soon as the action plan is complete, the money would go to the state in the form of a grant.

Limit liability. Companies that help fund the action plan would be exempt from paying anything more for cleanup.

Although tribal and environmental representatives are uneasy about that arrangement, Craig aide Sandy Patano emphasized that it’s key to getting companies to accept the cleanup plan.

“If they have closure, they’re willing to participate rather than taking their assets to another country,” she said.

That’s exactly what Gulf USA Corp., former operator of Bunker Hill, did in the 1980s. The Bunker Hill smelter site is now on the federal Superfund list, with taxpayers paying for most of the cleanup.

“Companies have got to have some kind of predictability,” agreed Holly Houston, executive director of the Mining Information Office.

Exempt “innocent landowners” from liability under federal law. That means farmers and others who have metals-polluted property along the Coeur d’Alene River won’t be responsible for cleanup.

Nils Johnson, Craig’s legislative assistant for natural resource issues, wouldn’t speculate on the chances that the bill will be passed into law by a Congress bent on balancing the federal budget.

But the bill’s approach to cleanup should be popular, he said.

“I certainly think the Republican Congress has an interest in bringing greater authority to the level of government where the people are best able to solve the problem - which in this case, is at the state and local level.”

, DataTimes