Beware of scary trail

So fall adds spice to the so-called Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes, the rail-banked, former Union Pacific spur line that runs from Plummer to Mullan.

But spice isn’t all that has been added. For roughly 100 years, the right-of-way was used to haul ore and heavy metals concentrates in and out of the Silver Valley, its mines and smelters. Over those years, tons of lead, arsenic, cadmium, zinc and more dripped and slopped from open gondola cars, contaminating the 150-foot wide rail bed and sinking deep into the ground where it still remains, poisoning the rivers and lakes through which it passes; a threat to the environment and health of the unwary biker who doesn’t take seriously the few, inadequate warning signs.

Children, particularly, are at risk considering the high levels of lead under and around the thin layer of asphalt. Despite official assurances that a cleanup was done, the cleanup was mostly superficial. Those who questioned and opposed the project were ignored.

Bulldozers simply bladed the surface soil and gravel to the side and left it. Very little was ever hauled away. We have pictures to prove it.

Jeri McCroskey

Coeur d’Alene