Dollars Or Dynamite In Smokestacks’ Future? Silver Valley Residents To Argue Preservation Or Demolition Of Defunct Smelter Stacks Thursday
Preserve or demolish?
That’s the question being put to Silver Valley residents Thursday night.
The state of Idaho and the federal Environmental Protection Agency are trying to decide whether to demolish the stacks from the defunct Bunker Hill mine complex. Officials are weighing long-term environmental effects, maintenance costs and public opinion.
Some residents want to enshrine at least one of the valley’s large smelter smokestacks as a mining memorial.
“Give me one and blow the rest,” said Brenda Auld, a save-the-stacker. “One for history, and the miners, is all I ask.”
Other locals - and reportedly a couple of film companies - want to blast the stacks as a symbolic end to the cleanup of a century of lead-tainted mining waste. The federal government years ago declared a 21-square-mile area in the Silver Valley to be a Superfund site.
“We had no idea there would be stackhuggers around,” said Brenda Stinson, of the Blowing Our Stacks Committee. “Those stacks serve as a reminder of the lead, and the EPA and the Superfund site.”
Thursday’s hearing will begin at 7 p.m. at the Kellogg Middle School. Both sides expect heavy turnout.
Kellogg and Smelterville together are home to four big stacks, three made of concrete and one of brick. The tallest two, from Bunker Hill’s lead and zinc smelters, were fired up in 1977. They went cold four years later, when Bunker Hill shut down.
The tallest stack, at 715 feet, cuts sharply into the valley sky. But whether the stack is distinctive, or merely ugly, depends on the viewer.
Auld and some economic development officials think the stack and a mining museum at its base would draw tourists. Boosters envision a grassy park, gift shop, perhaps even a restaurant atop the stack.
“They say this is a reminder of something bad,” Auld said. “We’ve got to take the bad and turn it into something good.”
Auld recently sent out a query on the Internet, asking people if they’d travel to see such a thing. People, from California to Vermont, wrote back to say they’d like to see the stack, she said.
A sticking point is the cost of maintaining a stack. The EPA, which supervises the Superfund cleanup, says it will have cost estimates Thursday. The biggest expense, it seems, is paying for the electricity to run the airplane-warning lights ringing the stacks.
Auld said save-the-stackers will seek money from the Shoshone County Commissioners. Stinson thinks the county has better things to spend its money on.
The Blowing Our Stacks committee plans to sell raffle tickets to pay for a celebration commemorating the stack demolition. The raffle winner would get to trigger the explosion.
Smelterville businessman Cliff Marshall is fielding calls from film companies interested in filming the stacks coming down.
He said he’s had two inquiries so far.
, DataTimes