Lucky Friday Silver Mine Uses Dated Technology, Group Says Lands Council To Sue Hecla, Epa For Heavy Metal Contamination In River

The settling ponds used at the Lucky Friday silver mine are old technology that should have been abandoned 20 years ago, according to an environmental group.

To force the use of other methods that will keep metals out of the Coeur d’Alene River, The Lands Council plans to sue Hecla Mining Co. and the Environmental Protection Agency.

“How can we believe a company’s claims that they ‘Do things differently now’ while they continue their 100-year-old tradition of poisoning the South Fork with heavy metals?” council staffer Michelle Nanni said Tuesday.

That’s wrong, responded Hecla spokeswoman Vicki Veltkamp.

“The ecosystem in the river below the Lucky Friday is better than in any other portion of the South Fork. We’re not causing harm to anything,” she said.

“They’re not trying to protect the environment with this lawsuit. What they’re trying to do is stop an environmentally compatible mining operation and put 200 people out of work,” Veltkamp said.

Protecting the environment and the community in which a company operates is part of the cost of doing business, Nanni said. Chemical treatment and filtration systems are standard for new discharge permits at other lead and silver mines in the Northwest and Alaska, she said.

The Lucky Friday near Mullan is among only four mines still operating in Shoshone County. Most discussion of heavy metals contamination has focused on the hundreds of historic mining operations that poured lead, zinc, cadmium and other metals into the river system.

“The operating mines in the Silver Valley are not the problem,” Veltkamp said.

The Lucky Friday’s ponds receive waste material from the mine and its mill, where silver ore is separated from waste rock.

By treating and filtering water, Nanni said, Hecla could remove 99.9 percent of the zinc that’s now going into the South Fork. Zinc is especially harmful to fish.

But according to Veltkamp, the mine already removes 99.9 percent of all pollutants.

Mine discharges require a federal permit that must be updated every five years. The Lucky Friday’s most recent permit expired in 1980, according to the Lands Council.

Veltkamp denies that, too.

“The Lucky Friday is operating under a valid permit. It does not expire until a new one is issued by the EPA,” she said.

On Monday, the Spokane-based Lands Council filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue Hecla for violating water quality rules, and the EPA for failing to enforce them.

Bill Riley, EPA mining coordinator in Seattle, said Tuesday that he couldn’t comment in detail on the council’s allegations. “We feel our overall efforts to implement the Clean Water Act in the Coeur d’Alene River will take care of things in the long run,” he said.

Idaho has been studying the South Fork to make a case for allowing higher levels of metals there than national standards allow. The mining company contends that fish do fine in the upper stretch of the South Fork, where levels of metals are naturally higher than in other rivers.

EPA officials, displeased with the state’s draft guidelines for allowable levels of metals in the South Fork, took over the process of establishing those levels this fall. That will determine the level of contaminants that the Lucky Friday is permitted to release.

Downstream of the Lucky Friday, the South Fork picks up metals from historic mine operations. Those in turn flow into the Lower Coeur d’Alene River, Lake Coeur d’Alene and the Spokane River.

MINE The Lucky Friday is among only four mines still operating in Shoshone County.