Metal-Laden Silt Causes Concern Ining Wastes Left Behind By February Floodwaters

Mike Irwin hasn’t brought his 4-year-old son back to his Cataldo home, which was destroyed by the Feb. 9 flood.

Irwin worries that Justin could get sick from being exposed to the mining wastes that are in the muck left behind by the receding water.

“My little one - I pretty much keep him and my wife away from here,” Irwin said Friday as he continued to clean up his property.

It’s a legitimate concern, said Jerry Cobb of Panhandle Health District. He’s been answering questions from people worried about the metals, and has placed packets of information in the Cataldo post office.

Cobb has plenty of advice to give from his years of working with Kellogg-area residents who live inside the Superfund toxic cleanup site that surrounds the defunct Bunker Hill smelter. Cataldo lies to the west along Interstate 90.

Zinc, arsenic, cadmium and other metals can cause nerve damage. Lead in children’s blood can cause learning disabilities.

The metals enter people’s bodies through contaminated air, food and water. Digging up lead from yards, and keeping it out of houses, has been a big priority in the Silver Valley.

Tons of wastes from old mine tailings wash down the Coeur d’Alene River, especially during floods. So Cobb wasn’t surprised that metals were found in muck scraped from inside the Irwin family’s mobile home.

“The numbers were encouragingly low,” he said. “I thought they’d be in the 1,000-to-3,000 range.”

That’s 3,000 parts per million of lead. In Irwin’s house, a sample showed 370 ppm. In the home of his neighbor, Darcy Norquist, 579 ppm was found.

Those levels aren’t healthy, Cobb said, but they are lower than the 1,000 ppm level that warrants replacing the soil in yards within the Superfund zone.

The Cataldo samples were taken by Phil Cernera, a scientist working for the Coeur d’Alene Indian Tribe. Cernera was nearby at Old Mission State Park soon after the flood, checking for metals contamination at the sacred site where tribal members powwow each August.

The tribe spent $180,000 last year cleaning up the campground, where lead levels reached 2,500 ppm. The levels dropped to 50-100 ppm, but rose above 500 when the floodwaters came.

When Cernera stopped in Cataldo to survey the flood damage there, residents greeted him and allowed him to take samples from their countertops and living rooms.

“It was just this really, really, ultra-fine, slick claylike substance,” Cernera said. “It’s everywhere. So what happens in the summer time? Does that stuff get like talcum powder and start blowing around and get into people’s homes again?”

Cobb is concerned about that, too. But he’s hopeful that spring rains will at least wash the sediment off roads and parking lots, which are the biggest source of dust.

“As grass in the flooded area starts to grow again, it will provide a reasonable burial (for the metals) if you’ve not got a 2-year-old playing on it,” he said.

People moving back into contaminated homes should shovel, then hose, then wet mop to get rid of the muck, Cobb said. Vacuuming helps, but sweeping is a bad idea because it can put lead particles into the air.

“Don’t just throw it out the front door because it’ll be tracked back in,” Cobb said. “It should be hauled off, away from the yard.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo