Kellogg’s Water In All The Wrong Places Creek Pours Across Old Mine Dump Before Making Its Way Down Newfound Route - Five City Blocks

This old mining town could either be ripped to shreds by Milo Creek or left bankrupt unless someone comes to the rescue.

The creek, contaminated by mine waste, is running above ground between makeshift levees, turning parts of downtown Kellogg into a scene from a war movie.

Tussling with the rogue creek is like “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic,” according to Kellogg’s public works superintendent.

Jamie Sharp is in his third week of the struggle. The creek burst through a storm drain from its subterranean route May 15, when a culvert became plugged with flood-washed rocks and debris.

Since then, the creek has been running through the streets - for five city blocks - to the South Fork of the Coeur d’Alene River.

Making matters worse, the creek became a slurry of sorts after a flash flood Saturday plugged the upper end with debris. Now the creek surges across an old mine dump - running red from mine acid in places - and is cutting a new channel through tons of mine waste.

“The only thing that’s missing is an invasion of locusts or grasshoppers,” deadpanned Sharp, who was hired last year by the city.

From the vantage point of an old road that winds up to Silver Mountain, Sharp pointed to where Milo Creek spews from the ore bin of the old dump, where the raging creek washed out banks downstream. Wardner Peak looms overhead, remnants of the winter’s record snowpack still hugging its slopes.

The spring runoff was simply too much for Kellogg’s aging piping system that guides Milo Creek to the river. Crumbling concrete, collapsing wooden cribbing and acid-eaten steel culverts comprise the system that was constructed 70 or more years ago.

Complicating matters, the pipes and culverts run under homes, yards and garages, not just city streets.

“I really don’t know where it’s going to blow out next,” Sharp said.

When Milo Creek plugged up and backed up in 1974, a car in a garage fell through a sinkhole, Sharp said. This time a backhoe fell through a giant sinkhole on the mine dump, some 30 feet deep.

That was a week after more than 100 people had to be evacuated from an apartment complex because of the flooding creek; after the creek burst through a sewer manhole and sent raw sewage floating down Main Street; after Kellogg High School students were released from school to help sandbag.

“What can you do but laugh about it,” said a resigned Todd Goodson, who lives on the corner of Maple and Market, where the creek bubbles up through a gaping hole.

Where Milo Creek runs underground, the surface sinks, creating dips and cracks in pavement, and sinkholes are developing in residential yards.

Where it runs above ground, it’s destroying what’s left of the streets. City crews placed culverts on top of Portland Street to keep the creek from boring through to buried power lines, water lines and sewer lines.

“We’re wondering what kind of help we can expect to get,” said Mayor Mac Pooler, who oversees an annual city budget of just over $1 million.

He and other city officials are hoping for a federal disaster declaration to free up federal money. Officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency visited Kellogg Tuesday as a follow-up to a FEMA team visit Friday.

Just unplugging the culvert won’t help, Sharp explained, because the pipe has burst in so many places.

The city estimates the current damage is more than $400,000. The cost to fix the Milo Creek culverts is estimated to be $6.8 million, not including a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers feasibility study that could cost $500,000 and take six years.

“We can’t wait another two years,” Pooler said. “There’s going to be damage every year.”

Even if the city can reroute the creek underground, that only solves part of the problem.

Sharp stood on the edge of the gaping hole on the Bunker Hill mine dump, listening as Milo Creek surged through the broken concrete pipe below.

“This is actually one of the biggest tailing piles around,” Sharp said.

“It’s not just rock. It’s a tailings pile. … This is a direct link to what everyone is crying about.”

The creek is the latest contributor of heavy metals - including lead, zinc and cadmium - to the Coeur d’Alene River.

Robert Hopper, owner of the New Bunker Hill Mining Co., has assured city officials that he would fix the plugged pipe by the end of the week.

That’s just a temporary solution, according to Sharp, who doesn’t understand why the pile isn’t being cleaned up as part of the Superfund project.

Nick Zilka, the on-site state coordinator for the Bunker Hill Superfund Project, said the pile isn’t a high priority because the water’s supposed to run underneath the dump through concrete pipes.

“It really doesn’t pose a significant risk, if the water systems are working as they’re supposed to be working,” he said. The mine’s pump isn’t working either, so acid mine water also is flowing into Milo Creek. Zilka said both problems should be fixed soon.

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