August 10, 2010 in City

Residents fear cleanup will hinder Silver Valley economy

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KELLOGG – Too far-reaching, too costly. Another knock for the Silver Valley.

That was the consensus of public testimony Monday evening at a town hall meeting on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s $1.3 billion plan to clean up mining waste in the upper Coeur d’Alene River Basin over the next 50 to 100 years.

“We don’t need our community to go through the devastation of being a Superfund site for 30 or 50 or 90 years,” said Wallace Mayor Dick Vester. “We don’t want this thing to go on forever.”

Vester was among 200 citizens who attended the meeting at Kellogg High School. While state and federal politicians raised concerns about the plan’s price tag, residents said the EPA’s extended presence would hinder the Silver Valley’s efforts to re-emerge from decades of economic hardship caused by earlier downturns in the mining industry.

“This is an unwelcome plan. It’s an unnecessary plan,” said John Magnuson, a Coeur d’Alene attorney whose family has deep roots in the Silver Valley. “This community needs a chance at economic self-determination. … A 100-year stigmatization is not the answer.”

The meeting was called by U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, a member of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee, which oversees the EPA. Idaho Gov. Butch Otter also attended the meeting, along with Chief Allan, chairman of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, and Dan Opalski, cleanup director for EPA’s regional office in Seattle.

Otter said his office is still digesting the 2,200-page federal document, which focuses on improving water quality across 300 square miles of the basin.

However, “I will not support an open-ended bureaucratic process that amounts to a blank check for the EPA,” the governor said.

“I’m here to listen and hear your perspectives,” Opalski responded. “We want to hear every viewpoint about the plan that’s out there.”

The plan’s length and price tag reflect the magnitude of cleanup needed to make the upper basin healthy for people and wildlife, he said. Opalski also told the audience that the cleanup is “compatible with responsible mining in the valley into the very far future.”

He said the EPA has already decided to extend the comment period beyond Aug. 25, in response to requests from the Idaho congressional delegation and others. A new comment deadline hasn’t been set.

EPA officials said the agency’s earlier cleanup plan for the upper basin doesn’t do enough to protect water quality. The new plan targets old mine sites and waste rock piles, which leach lead, arsenic, cadmium and other heavy metals downstream. In addition, pockets of polluted groundwater would be piped to a Kellogg plant for treatment.

Both people and wildlife would benefit from the cleanup, EPA officials said. Some stream stretches remain too toxic to support fish.

Flooding spreads the heavy metals, and people who recreate along the shoreline can be exposed to polluted water and soil, according to the EPA.

“This (plan) properly and honestly describes the extent of this problem,” said Terry Harris, executive director of the Kootenai Environmental Alliance. The Coeur d’Alene-based organization has members in the Silver Valley as well as the lower basin, said Harris, who urged the EPA not to delay the cleanup work too long.

Executives from Hecla Mining Co., which operates the Lucky Friday Mine in Mullan, said they oppose parts of the plan. It lists three active tailings ponds as future cleanup sites and could hinder mineral exploration in the Silver Valley, executives said.

Some audience members said they didn’t think the remaining mine waste in the Silver Valley posed health risks.

Bill Mooney, who lives in Burke Canyon, said he has two neighbors in their 90s who drink the water and eat homegrown vegetables irrigated with local water supplies.

“Mining jobs are good jobs,” Mooney said. “Shoshone County needs all the jobs it can get, and so does the state of Idaho.”

10 comments on this story so far. Add yours!

• 

  Spokane_Citizen on August 10 at 7:33 a.m.

  Oh yes, we mustn’t respond to the mining waste cancer eating at the Silver Valley’s ecosystems. Everyone might think the moribund patient is unhealthy. Maybe if we just ignore the illness, the symptoms will go away. Don’t want to scare off the suckers….er… I mean tourists. Yeah…that’s the ticket!

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  fishinjay on August 10 at 7:47 a.m.

  This fight against cleanup blows my mind. As if it is the “Superfund” label that turns people off? Sorry, but it’s the abundant mining pollution. Superfund is they way it’s going to be fixed. Turning a blind eye to the pollution is short-sighted wishful thinking. The mines polluted the valley (because we all demanded the precious metals), now it’s time for all of us to clean it up. The mines will be forced to pay their share, and we’ll be forced to pay ours through taxes funding the EPA. Let’s fix this, even if it does take 100 years.

  As for the “people in their 90s who drink the water and irrigate their vegetables with local water supplies,” I know plenty of old folks that smoked like chimneys all their lives. Do you want to argue that’s healthy for everyone too?

• 

  misjustice on August 10 at 8:50 a.m.

  Go ahead and stick your heads in the tailings ponds…ignore the problem and it will just go away.

• 

  spokanada on August 10 at 9:10 a.m.

  “Some audience members said they didn’t think the remaining mine waste in the Silver Valley posed health risks.”

  Well I guess this solves it. There doesn’t seem to be a problem and the audience members live there so surely they know more than the EPA and their scientists.

• 

  MrNatural on August 10 at 10:20 a.m.

  It seems that EPA is trying to help the people in this community and they don’t want to be helped because of their loyalty to the mining industry. That’s sort of odd given the fact that heavy metal mining pollution has scarred the hillsides poisoned the streams and rivers and contaminated their residences and school yards. Hard to figure out some people these days…

• 

  SpokaneLiberal on August 10 at 1:29 p.m.

  It is sad. That region could be a cool area of the country including for tourism, mining, events, skiing, environmental events, etc. The reason the economy is lagging is not because of the “stigma” of a superfund designation but because until it is cleaned up right people don’t want to risk it to live there - which means limited or no outside capital. Get it cleaned up, don’t ignore it if you want to grow….

• 

  spokanecougar on August 10 at 5:43 p.m.

  So instead of being a superfund site attempting to clean themselves up they would rather be known as a polluted cancer producing sinkhole. Hmmm….ok.

• 

  west on August 10 at 6:24 p.m.

  Silver valley is dead already..like in Applachia..mines are gone and poor folk live there..maybe in 50 years the area will grow again..

• 

  riverlaw on August 10 at 8:19 p.m.

  Sounds like many of those attending have been over exposed to lead.

• 

  jazzyvandal on August 10 at 11:01 p.m.

  I just moved from the Silver Valley, and the economy is pretty much dead there. People are moving out and there are tons of empty houses. Mining is not coming back like it used to. Time to move on. Bring in other jobs and industries. The people are great, but many of them have their heads in the sand.