Idaho Takes Epa Complaints To D.C. Batt, Crapo, Kempthorne Want Local Control Of Basin Cleanup

Local outcry over expanding the Superfund site in the Coeur d’Alene River Basin is reverberating around Boise and Capitol Hill.

Idaho’s governor and two congressmen asked the Environmental Protection Agency Thursday to step carefully into basin cleanup and let local communities take the lead.

Rep. Mike Crapo questioned EPA director Carol Browner Thursday about the agency’s involvement in the basin during a hearing on plans to overhaul Superfund.

“Once again, the EPA has taken a major step toward expanding the approach to Superfund management without involving the local communities or the state,” Crapo said.

Sen. Dirk Kempthorne also questioned the federal involvement.

“There is no reason in the world the city of Coeur d’Alene and the lake should become America’s largest Superfund site,” Kempthorne said. “I reject this Draconian step, and I have made it very clear to administrator Browner that the people of Coeur d’Alene deserve a public clarification of their city’s status.”

Last week, the EPA announced that it was studying the extent of heavy metal contamination in the basin - including Lake Coeur d’Alene and the Spokane River - as a first step in developing a cleanup plan under the Superfund law.

Despite assurances that the process would fully involve state and local government, as well as mining companies and the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, local officials reacted angrily.

Some county and city leaders fear the EPA’s move could paint Coeur d’Alene with the Superfund stigma, hurting tourism and other business interests.

Crapo asked Browner to include locals in decisions regarding the basin and to have the EPA’s regional administrator meet with Idaho Gov. Phil Batt.

“I asked her to…allow common sense solutions to be developed in Idaho rather than imposed by the federal bureaucracy,” Crapo said.

Later in the day, Idaho Gov. Phil Batt sent a letter to EPA’s regional administrator, Chuck Clark, asking him to come to Boise for a meeting to discuss the process.

“The purpose of the meeting will be to clarify all outstanding issues and to affirm that the state of Idaho and the federal government are appropriately responding to these issues in a true partnership effort,” Batt wrote.

Batt spokesman Lindsay Northern said the governor was responding to fears that the EPA had reneged on an agreement to work with all parties on a cleanup plan.

“There’s been concern that maybe the federal end of the partnership is getting ahead of the state,” Northern said.

That’s not the case, said Mike Gearheard, regional Superfund director in Seattle. The EPA’s investigation and study of the basin will involve use of a mediator to find agreement on the course of action, he said.

“We made no promise that we wouldn’t do an RIFS (Remedial Investigation/Feasibility Study),” Gearheard said, referring to the first step in the Superfund process. “We did promise to work with the mining industry and the state and others to find a cooperative approach to cleanup planning in the basin.”

The EPA has hired a mediator who will start work in April.

“I’m not going to say that we have hit on all eight cylinders every moment through this process,” Gearheard said. “Undoubtedly, some people feel we could have done better.”

While some state and local officials are concerned about the EPA’s involvement in the basin, the state of Washington welcomes it.

The state’s Department of Ecology has found lead and zinc levels that exceed Washington state standards in the Spokane River. The agency attributes the metals to historic mining pollution upstream.

“We feel our interests are better represented with the EPA involved,” said Jani Gilbert, Washington Department of Ecology spokeswoman. “Our interest is to have the outfall of Lake Coeur d’Alene cleaned up so the metals aren’t flowing into Washington.”

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: BYLINE = Susan Drumheller Staff writer The Associated Press contributed to this report.