Washington Welcomes Superfund Probe Spokane River Pollution Needs To Be Investigated, Officials Say

The Spokane River is so heavily laced with heavy metals from Silver Valley mining that the Environmental Protection Agency should expand its Superfund investigation, Washington state officials say.

No other major river in Washington contains such high levels of lead, cadmium and zinc, they argue in court documents filed with the U.S. District Court in Boise.

During high runoff in 1997, for example, lead in the Spokane River was three to six times higher than federal standards for fish and other aquatic life.

So the EPA’s decision that it was going to investigate pollution outside of the Bunker Hill Superfund site “was welcome news for state agencies and environmental groups in Washington, who are concerned about metals contamination of the Spokane River for the threat it poses to the environment and potentially to public health,” Washington state officials argue.

This position puts Washington at odds with Kootenai County and the City of Coeur d’Alene, who filed legal motions late last month aimed at stopping the EPA from testing for lead and other contaminants beyond the official Bunker Hill Superfund site.

City and county officials say they weren’t given enough notice of the EPA’s plans to probe Lake Coeur d’Alene and the Spokane River or the chance to have a say in the plan.

The result: “News articles and agency announcements implying that Lake Coeur d’Alene is within a contaminated Superfund site damages the well-deserved and hard-earned popularity of Coeur d’Alene and erodes the public perception of it as a scenic and attractive place with a high quality of life,” Coeur d’Alene Mayor Steve Judy said in the city’s legal filings.

One of the offensive news stories includes a major piece done by “U.S. News & World Report” on North Idaho’s contamination consternation.

But the Idaho Conservation League and The Lands Council, who have joined the federal court fight on the side of the EPA, says Judy is to blame for tarnishing the area’s image.

“If Mayor Judy had not, on a number of occasions compared Lake Coeur d’Alene with Love Canal, there would have been little publicity locally and certainly no ‘U.S. News & World Report’ story,” the environmental groups argue.

Judy told U.S. News and other publications “This is not Love Canal and there is no demonstrated public health risk from the lake.”

In addition, the EPA’s plans were “blown totally out of proportion into a federal threat to make a Superfund site out of Lake Coeur d’Alene.”

While the Lands Council and the Conservation League don’t support expanding the formal Superfund site, they do want the EPA to look at mining contamination throughout the Coeur d’Alene River Basin, they said.

Lead from Silver Valley mining has been found in eight Spokane Valley water wells, the environmentalists’ claim. And a federal study found more than 1 million pounds of lead washed from the Silver Valley into Lake Coeur d’Alene during one day of flooding in 1996.

The city and county’s efforts to stop the EPA investigation will not stop tailings from the defunct mine and smelter from washing downstream, said Scott Reed, who represents the environmentalists.

At least one riverside businessman - resort manager Bob Templin - supports the EPA probe.

“I’m not a scientist; I don’t know if there’s some contamination or not,” said Templin, of Cavanaugh’s Templin’s Resort in Post Falls. “If there is, it should be exposed and we should do whatever it takes to clean it up.”

While a Superfund stigma could hurt Templin’s hospitality business, “we’ll take our hit now,” he said, if that means area is clean in the future.

STATE’S CONTENTION In court documents, the state says no other major river in Washington contains such high levels of lead, cadmium and zinc.

Staff writer Laura Shireman contributed to this report.