Let’s Blast Stacks To Smithereens Anti-Stacks A Reminder Of An Ugly Past Of Greed, Arrogance And Pollution

Silver Valley residents lobbying to save a Bunker Hill smokestack are incredibly misguided and naive. They might as well tape signs on their backs saying, “Kick us.”

No clear-thinking native would want to remind visitors that they’re in the middle of a 21-square-mile Superfund site. But the four giant stacks, rising tall above dunes of black mining waste and denuded hills, do just that. Maybe the save-our-stackers should post billboards on Fourth of July and Lookout passes warning of heavy-metal contamination, too.

The smokestacks, poking as much as 715 feet above the valley floor, are eyesores that have little historical value. (The largest two were built less than 20 years ago.) They also are aviation hazards which clash with downtown Kellogg’s alpine theme and Silver Mountain’s expanding ski operation.

All four monstrosities should be torn down. If Kellogg and Smelterville can make a buck in the process through a raffle or by selling demolition rights to Hollywood, more power to them.

The stacks symbolize the greed and corporate arrogance that slowly poisoned the Silver Valley. They weren’t built by historic “Uncle Bunker” but rather by Gulf Resources - the company that defrauded pensioners and investors alike.

Gulf Resources opened two of them in 1977 in a last-ditch effort to squeeze a few more millions out of the mines before skipping town. Gulf executives figured they could buy time with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and cut down on sulfur dioxide emissions by building stacks tall enough to pierce the stagnant air, allowing gases to escape the valley.

The stacks were closed in 1981 along with the Bunker Hill mine.

Brenda Stinson, a former Bunker Hill seamstress and spokeswoman of the anti-smokestack group, Blowing Our Stacks Committee, called the experiment “a monumental failure in accomplishing EPA standards.”

Economically strapped Shoshone County has better things to do with the estimated $36,500 needed each year just to maintain the airplane-warning lights ringing the stacks. Said Stinson: “A lot of us who worked at the smelter don’t exactly love the stacks.”

The Silver Valley needs to put this sorry chapter in its history behind it. Where’s the dynamite?

, DataTimes MEMO: For opposing view, see headline: Let’s save stacks as a tourist draw

The following fields overflowed: SUPCAT = EDITORIAL, COLUMN - From both sides CREDIT = D.F. Oliveria/For the editorial board