Coeur D’Alene Basin Cleanup Plan Comments Due Tomorrow
The Spokane Riverkeeper is reminding us that time is running out to submit your comments to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency about their proposed mining cleanup plan for the Upper Coeur d’Alene Basin. The deadline for comments is tomorrow.
From the Riverkeeper: You may recall that up for review is a 2,200-page plan that will update some of EPA’s ecological cleanup priorities in the Upper Basin and the Box. The Upper Basin includes the South Fork of the Coeur d’Alene River and its tributaries downstream to where they flow into the North Fork. The Box is the 21-square-mile area around the old Bunker Hill smelter where EPA began its cleanup activities in the early 1980s.
Back on August 4th I wrote that, “Particularly concerning to those who live, work and play in the directly effected area is the cost of the project and who will pay for all of it.“
Unfortunately, the truth on this matter has been hard to get to due to misleading messaging coming from the mining industry and Idaho Governor Butch Otter himself. Otter submitted his comments this week, and the Kootenai Environmental Alliance responded by saying, “we think Gov. Otter should be a bit more honest about rhetoric in his letter about how EPA will ‘wildly spend public resources’ and how it doesn’t ‘live within the people’s means.’ This cleanup is funded primarily with trust funds from the polluters that made the mess in the first place, not taxpayers. His grandstanding is not helpful.”
Still concerning to the Spokane Riverkeeper is the meeting of water quality standards. Our interest in this case is our goal of the Spokane River meeting water quality standards. We simply cannot envision that without upstream pollutants being cleaned up.
You can send comments via email to cdabasin@epa.gov or send it via mail to:
Coeur d’Alene Basin Team
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
1200 6th Avenue, Suite 900, MS ECL-113
Seattle, WA 98101
The Idaho Conservation League has made it easy to submit your comments through their website. You can tell EPA that, “the proposed plan to cleanup the Upper Coeur d’Alene Basin is a balanced, commonsense approach to correcting a century’s worth of contamination.”
