Becky Kramer

Two boats fouled with invasive mussels from the Great Lakes have already been stopped at a mandatory inspection checkpoint on Interstate 90 near Wallace this year. Idaho Department of Agriculture officials said the early detection affirms their decision to open the checkpoint six weeks sooner than they did last year. About 20 vessels have been inspected at the station since the Feb. 3 opening.

Repairing and upgrading the Lucky Friday Mine’s main shaft will cost about $30 million, Hecla Mining Co. said Tuesday. Company officials expect to start repairs within a few weeks, which will include removing cement deposits from the shaft’s walls, repairing steel in the shaft, installing a new power cable and other work. The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration closed the shaft in early January, citing safety concerns about the buildup of loose material on the shaft’s walls.

Repairing and upgrading the Lucky Friday Mine’s main shaft will cost about $30 million, Hecla Mining Co. said today. Company officials said they expect to start repairs within a few weeks, which will include removing cement deposits from the shaft’s walls, repairing steel in the shaft, installing a new power cable and other work.

Three decades from now, Silver Valley residents could still be living in a Superfund site, under the federal government’s scaled-back cleanup plans. After an outcry from Idaho’s elected officials and valley residents, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency drastically reduced the scope of its proposed $1.3 billion cleanup of historic mining waste in the upper Coeur d’Alene River basin. Under the original plan, the work could have lasted up to 100 years. EPA’s new plan would cost $740 million and finish up in about 30 years.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to scale back cleanup work in the Silver Valley comes with a catch: At the end of 30 years, the upper Coeur d’Alene River Basin could still be a Superfund site.

Falling wholesale prices for natural gas could soon be reflected in utility customers’ bills, Avista officials said Monday. The Spokane-based utility has asked Washington and Idaho regulators for permission to pass lower gas prices on to customers, effective March 1.

The Coeur d’Alene Tribe’s new radio station, KWIS 88.3 FM, has begun broadcasting.

Grizzly bears are tucked away in their winter dens for at least another six weeks. But grizzly specialist Kim Annis is already embarking on northwestern Montana’s rural talk circuit. Hired four years ago by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, Annis speaks to hundreds of people each year at libraries, schools and community events about living in grizzly country.

Members of the public will have an additional 60 days to comment on a controversial plan to designate 375,000 acres in the Selkirk Mountains as critical habitat for endangered caribou. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to extend the comment deadline after requests from Idaho Gov. Butch Otter and Boundary County’s board of commissioners.

The first call came from snowmobilers near the old mining town of Murray, Idaho. Dusk had set in, and the caller was worried about a man who had gotten separated from his group. Shortly afterward, the Shoshone County Sheriff’s Department got another call about a lost snowmobiler. This one had failed to meet a friend near Wallace.

Tussock moths chewed their way across 68,000 acres of the Idaho Panhandle last summer, leaving behind red-topped trees.

Idaho Gov. Butch Otter will ask federal regulators to hold a public meeting in the Silver Valley to explain their decision to shut down the Lucky Friday Mine’s shaft for safety reasons.

A dozen white supremacists demonstrated on Northwest Boulevard in Coeur d’Alene on Friday, waving Ku Klux Klan flags and signs supporting segregation. Among the demonstrators was Shaun Winkler, who calls himself the Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the KKK. Winkler said his group plans another demonstration Monday – Martin Luther King Jr. Day – outside the human relations task force’s annual gala.

About 1,300 students from the Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls school districts attended a Martin Luther King Day celebration Friday at North Idaho College.

Conditions in the Lucky Friday Mine’s main shaft have parallels to problems at a Nevada gold mine where a 2010 shaft accident claimed the lives of two workers, a top official at the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration said Thursday. During recent visits to the underground silver mine in Mullan, Idaho, federal inspectors became concerned about workers’ safety “because of conditions in that shaft,” said Joseph Main, assistant secretary of labor for mine safety and health, in a phone interview from Washington, D.C.

Idaho residents have relatively small carbon footprints because most of their electricity comes from hydropower, a new study says. Idaho’s rivers generate 80 percent of the electricity used in the state. As a result, the Gem State has the second lowest per capita rate of carbon dioxide emissions in the nation, according to a U.S. Department of Energy analysis.