Floods Wash Up Hazardous Waste Crews Round Up Toxic Materials Along St. Joe And Coeur D’Alene Rivers

Like cowboys lassoing wayward cattle, environmental crews spent the past week rounding up hazardous materials in the flooded St. Joe River valley.

They hauled in more than 200 containers, ranging from 5-gallon cans to 55-gallon barrels. Those contained fuels, grease and hydraulic fluid, and at least one barrel held pesticides, according to Brian Painter of the Idaho Division of Environmental Quality.

A similar roundup along the flooded Coeur d’Alene River yielded about 50 barrels.

Painter estimated there were 10,000 to 20,000 gallons of hazardous materials in the St. Maries flood zone. Some undoubtedly leaked. A 100-gallon leak was reported at a diesel fueling station upstream near Calder.

The barrels’ contents will be identified during testing today in Coeur d’Alene. Then they’ll be disposed of properly.

“If it’s hazardous, we need to know that,” Painter said as he stood in the Benewah County landfill, where the barrels were sorted. “If it’s just waste oil, we can have it recycled.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will pay for the disposal.

Painter was team leader for the St. Maries effort, which included up to 20 workers at a time.

The state’s hazardous materials teams from Lewiston and Coeur d’Alene were joined by people from the St. Maries Fire Department and Idaho Department of Fish and Game, as well as hazardous waste specialists hired by the EPA.

The crews used airplanes and air boats to scout and scour Meadowhurst and Pinedale, the two main areas that were flooded when dikes burst.

The muddy waters reached four automotive shops and two sawmills. Employees scurried to get hazardous materials out of the way of the rising water, said Bill Mottern of the St. Maries Fire Department.

“Most people tried to do what they could before the worst of it hit,” he said.

Little can be done once the pollution reaches the water, Painter said.

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