Kellogg To Blow Its Stack Blasts To Level Smokestacks From Old Bunker Hill Smelter

It will be less than an earthquake, more like a sonic boom.

That’s how officials describe the concussion coming Sunday when 14 million pounds of concrete crash to the ground in Kellogg.

“People will be able to feel an impact, but it will dissipate rapidly. Our analysis shows it’s not going to break any windows or knock things off shelves,” said Mike Mahoney of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Explosives will level four smokestacks - the tallest is 715 feet high - that have towered for two decades or more over the Silver Valley. The stacks went cold in the early 1980s with the demise of the Bunker Hill mine.

This weekend, workers have been packing roughly 500 pounds of dynamite into the bases of the stacks.

“It’s like driving your car. All it takes is common sense,” said Eric Kelly, vice president of Engineered Demolition Inc., a Minneapolis blasting firm. Kelly cut a crease in a stick of dynamite, snapped it like a piece of chalk and tamped it into a blast hole with a wooden stick.

Inside the base of the largest stack, a latticework of yellow and red blasting wires trails from dozens of blasting holes. Visitors’ voices echo inside the concrete room, with light dimly visible at the top, 700 feet up.

The blasting also will bring down an older black-tipped concrete stack, 202 feet tall. It is the notorious smokestack that belched lead wastes into the valley for months after a 1973 fire in a filter “baghouse.” Later, doctors found dangerously high lead levels in Silver Valley children.

Destruction of the stacks caps more than a year of demolition at the 21-square-mile federal Superfund site, contaminated by decades of mining wastes. More than 100 mining and processing buildings have been demolished, with a total cleanup cost so far of $12 million. Stack demolition cost: $280,000.

Community efforts to save the stacks as a historic landmark failed. No one could raise the money to maintain the stacks and power the aircraft-warning lights.

The site, in the midst of a massive demolition effort, remains a wasteland of scraped soil, black slag, concrete, twisted metal and weeds. Vehicles on the site are washed clean before leaving so contaminated sand and mud won’t be spread.

Workers have sawed and jackhammered three large “doors” in each of four smokestacks. Like notches in a tree, the doors will direct the fall of the stacks.

At 2 p.m. Sunday, demolition experts plan to send electrical current to the blasting caps, triggering explosions that will fell all four stacks within 20 seconds. Workers will wet down the ground and rubble with fire hoses to reduce dust from the lead-tainted ground.

“None of them will have to be moved. They’ll be buried in place,” said the Corps of Engineers’ Mahoney.

Security guards and police will patrol the area to keep trespassers out of the blast site. Mahoney said the blasting will be halted if anyone or any aircraft gets within the danger zones.

Thousands of gawkers are expected to fill ball fields and hillsides around the demolition area.

A carnival will be set up at the base of the Silver Mountain gondola in Kellogg. Vendors in both Smelterville and Kellogg will be selling food and drinks, hats and T-shirts. Many local bars are planning happy hours and live music afterward.

“This is a one-time community thing,” said Cliff Marshall, a member of Kellogg’s Blowing Our Stacks Committee.

He asks that picnickers and partyers clean up their litter before going home.

“Pack it in, pack it out,” he said. “We really don’t want a disaster area.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Graphic: Up in smoke

MEMO: Cut in the Spokane edition.

This sidebar appeared with the story: STACK FACTS Tips on seeing the demolition of the Bunker Hill smokestacks: When: Ceremonies start at 1 p.m. Sunday. The blast’s at 2 p.m. Where to park: Take exit 48 (Smelterville) or 49 (Bunker Avenue/Silver Mountain) off Interstate 90. Volunteers will direct people to parking areas, most of which will charge $5 per carload. Free parking is available on city streets. Good viewing areas: Smelterville, both north and south of the freeway, offers good views. The western end of Kellogg, near the high school and middle school, also are pretty good. People likely will climb the hills on both sides of the freeway to get better views. To find out more: Tune a radio to AM 620 on Sunday. The local station will have parking and traffic updates and will broadcast the pre-blast ceremony. Tips: Get there early. Traffic on Interstate 90 will be stopped for a few minutes at blasting time to prevent wrecks by rubbernecking drivers. Also, aircraft are prohibited from flying within a one-mile radius of the demolition site.