Spokane7
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June 13, 2011
Hecla agrees to Superfund settlement
The largest mining company in Idaho’s Silver Valley will pay $263.4 million plus interest to settle one of the nation’s largest Superfund lawsuits — one of the top 10 such settlements in history, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday announced that Hecla Mining Co., of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, will pay the money to the United States, the state of Idaho and Coeur d’Alene tribal governments for releasing mining wastes into the environment.
The money will be used in the Environmental Protection Agency’s multi-billion dollar cleanup of toxic mining wastes. Hecla is one of the nation’s largest primary silver producers, operating the Lucky Friday Mine in the Silver Valley and a mine in Alaska.
The agreement was filed Monday in federal court in Boise, Idaho.
The lawsuit was originally brought in 1991 against Hecla and other mining companies in the Silver Valley by the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, seeking penalties for damage to water, fish and birds caused by millions of tons of mining wastes that were released into the South Fork of the Coeur d’Alene River and its tributaries.
The EPA has been performing cleanup work in the Coeur d’Alene River Basin since the early 1980’s, and the lawsuit also sought to recover cleanup costs.
The governments have already reached settlements with other mining companies that had historic operations in valley, which is 50 miles east of Spokane, Wash. That included ASARCO, which along with Hecla was a primary defendant. ASARCO reached a settlement in 2008.
“This agreement will help pay for the U.S. government’s cleanup activities, secures natural resource damages, and will restore critical habitats to fish and wildlife in the Coeur d’Alene River Basin,” said Ignacia S. Moreno, assistant attorney general for the environment at the Justice Department.
The Bunker Hill Superfund site is one of the nation’s largest and most contaminated, with widespread releases of toxic metals such as lead and arsenic that have sickened residents for decades. Despite years of cleanup, much contamination remains.
“This settlement brings decades of litigation to a close and provides a clear path to continue restoring the health of the environment, economy and communities of the Coeur d’Alene Basin,” Idaho Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter said.
The consent decree is subject to a 30-day public comment period and approval by the federal court.
© Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Curtailed Silver Valley cleanup is ‘interim’ EPA plan 
Kivaari on June 13 at 10:34 a.m.
The people of the Silver Valley need to sue the EPA for destroying our lives. The biggest polluter in Shoshone county is the EPA with leaking repositories, diverted acid mine discharges, torn up yards and waste stored in flood plains.
oneanddone on June 13 at 11:21 a.m.
The indians say gimme, Otter says gimme, and the feds say gimme, while the lucky people who actually LIVE in the Silver Valley are the only ones who suffer but they get squat. I’m all for making business pay for their mess, even 100 years after the fact, but I see no reason to give the state or indians anything. If it’s REALLY in need of restoration every nickel should go to those actually doing the restoration. Giving it to the state or indians is just flushing it down the drain because it won’t get spent on cleanup. The indians will spend it on their casino and the state will give it back to Hecla.
merckx155 on June 13 at 11:55 a.m.
I agree, the only thing Otter will do with the money is to give it to his rich buddies, that’s the republican way, we give to the repubs and they give it to their rich buddies
johnclarke on June 13 at 1:05 p.m.
Well in this case Hecla gives :)
RedCedar on June 13 at 11:33 p.m.
Hecla’s money is just another teat on the cash cow that the EPA plans to milk for the next 100 years at least. All that’s left to “clean up” in terms of real environmental issues is zinc levels in the river that exceed federal standards. Beyond that, nobody is getting sick, Silver Valley children’s blood lead levels are now below the national average, the trees are growing back all over the hillsides poisoned by the smelter fumes, and even the most industrialized parts of the river have fish in them. There’s no problem with the government that can’t be solved by paying money, and that’s what Hecla did, but let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that this is “for the environment”.
Want to improve the environment where it’s still getting worse? Stop the suburban sprawl of the Coeur d’Alene / Spokane megalopolis. Pollution running off of parking lots, over-fertilized lawns, golf courses, and streets is doing way more harm to water quality, than anything in the Silver Valley.
If you go up to the Silver Valley right now and look at the EPA’s new toxic waste dump, you’ll see that it’s right in a wetland. They’re taking allegedly-contaminated dirt from people’s yards and dumping it in a swamp. Nobody but the EPA could get away with deliberately dumping contaminated soil in a seasonal wetland that’s contiguous with the Coeur d’Alene river. Oh, and the signs on the freeway are deliberately cryptic: they read “ICP Users”, not “toxic waste dump”. Few people who drive by probably even know what “ICP Users” means. Of course, with a 100-year “cleanup” plan, there will be plenty of time to dig the dirty dirt back out of the dirty dirt dump and move it somewhere else in the valley in 20 or 30 years. And maybe move it back again later. From what I can see, the “cleanup” money goes to two things: commissioning very fancy plans with many multi-colored overlay maps and neatly engineered drawings, and moving dirt from one pile to another.