Razing The Smelter Crews Demolish Final Building (Not Smokestacks) At Bunker Hill
Another piece of mining history bit the dust Thursday.
The 50-foot-high arch of building frame was all that remained of the sprawling Bunker Hill lead smelter, except for the smokestacks. Its demolition was a milestone in the cleanup of country’s second-largest Superfund site.
Environmental officials and reporters stared through spitting snow at the remains of the lead refinery building. Workers in orange suits hosed it with water to reduce metals-tainted dust.
Someone’s two-way radio cackled with the sound of a man’s voice. It was aimed at two heavy-equipment operators. Each controlled a giant pincer that gripped a leg of the steel skeleton.
“Both you guys ready to pull? … “OK. Let’s pull it!” The building frame crumpled on its side, like an animal taken down at the heels.
Since the fall of 1994, the Environmental Protection Agency has overseen the steady destruction of more than 100 buildings at the smelter complex.
Two demolitions had special significance to EPA project leader Earl Liverman.
One was the multi-story wooden dry ore building that loomed on a hillside. Another was the lead smelter bag house, which was once allowed to operate despite being disabled by fire. Local children were poisoned by smokestack emissions as a result.
The buildings’ steel is salvaged and sold, with the proceeds put back into the project. The rest of the refuse will go into a 30-acre landfill at the site.
“The landfill will look like a large, grassy hill when all is said and done,” Liverman said.
About 40 workers are at the Bunker Hill site. Some are stripping asbestos shingles from the zinc smelter, to prevent the cancer-causing insulation from flying about when that part of the complex is destroyed.
That intricate maze of steel and machinery will come down by this fall.
The entire cleanup will be done within 18 months, Liverman said. Then, the land will be turned over to the state.
The Silver Valley Economic Development Corp. hopes to lure new businesses to the hilly site. Two warehouses that might serve a new purpose will be left standing.
Ore concentrate bins at the zinc smelter will also be left intact. The Shoshone County road department plans to store gravel there, Liverman said.
The cleanup is being supervised by the Army Corps of Engineers; the contractor is Morrison-Knudsen. Liverman praised the crews of local workers.
“It’s gone remarkably well,” he said. “We could not ask for better people.”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: MARK CALENDAR FOR TOPPLING Sunday, May 26. That’ll be D-Day for the Bunker Hill smokestacks. H-Hour will be 2 p.m. The date for destruction of the two biggest Silver Valley landmarks was chosen by local residents. They want it to be the centerpiece of a Memorial Day weekend party that coincides with a miners’ reunion. “It’s up to the Blast the Stacks Committee to decide where they’d like to set up reviewing stands,” said Earl Liverman of the Environmental Protection Agency. Two smaller, older stacks will be taken down a week earlier. The two big 70-story concrete stacks will fall that Sunday in quick succession, if all goes as planned. The lead smelter stack will fall to its final resting place in a landfill. The zinc smelter stack will topple into a ravine and be buried there, Liverman said. “We’re going to knock these puppies over like a tree.”