Cda River Cleanup Talks Ahead

Warring parties in the lawsuit over Coeur d’Alene River basin pollution are taking tentative steps toward cleanup.

Next week, the various factions will go to Seattle for a meeting hosted by the federal Environmental Protection Agency to talk about how they can work together.

The federal government and the Coeur d’Alene Tribe are suing several mining companies for $1 billion over pollution in the basin.

While the EPA is a party in the lawsuit, it’s also interested in directing some cleanup in the basin. For months, the agency has been meeting with various parties with a vested interest in the issue, including the states of Idaho and Washington.

Tuesday will be the first meeting to bring everyone together.

“It’s a little on the sensitive side out there,” said Mike Gearheard, EPA’s head of the regional Superfund program. “We’re trying to make sure that everybody is walking along in the same direction.”

So far, the state, the tribe and the mining companies are agreeable.

While the EPA has authority under the Superfund law to force cleanup work, in this case the agency appears to be taking a different tack.

“We all hope to get clean-up in the basin moving faster and more efficiently,” Gearheard said. “We’re all collectively figuring out ways to get there.”

EPA officials are hesitant to talk about the possibility of conducting a “remedial investigation/feasibility study,” which is a multimillion-dollar process to determine the extent of contamination and options for clean-up. It’s normally a step in the Superfund process.

, DataTimes