Feds Consider New Superfund Designations

Federal officials are mulling new Superfund designations in the Coeur d’Alene Basin.

Silver Valley residents have lived in the shadow of a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cleanup of 21-square-miles around Kellogg since 1983. Downriver businesses in Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls have condemned the idea of more Superfund labels in the basin, fearing an accompanying tourism stigma.

But EPA officials say Superfund may be the way to clean up lead and other metals in other highly contaminated segments of the basin.

“We’re looking at where you need to have that tool available to do cleanup based on where contamination is high enough to warrant that tool,” said Mike Gearheard, EPA’s top regional Superfund official.

A Superfund declaration - as is the case at the Bunker Hill Superfund site in Kellogg - frees federal funding for cleanup, but gives EPA the right to go after industries responsible for the pollution.