Study Finds Increased Lead Levels In River

More than half a million pounds of lead flowed past Harrison last year, according to a new federal report.

The U.S. Geological Survey study, commissioned by the Environmental Protection Agency, looked at water quality in the Coeur d’Alene River system during 1999.

Researchers found the amount of lead in the river doubled in the slow-moving area between Rose Lake and the head of Lake Coeur d’Alene.

Lead and other contaminants are the subject of evolving efforts to clean up a century’s pollution from Silver Valley mines.

The metal could be seeping through ground water from upriver mines and the Bunker Hill Superfund site when the river drops to low flows in late summer, researchers said.

In Canyon Creek near Wallace, lead levels went from 128 pounds a year at Burke to 27,700 pounds at the creek mouth, probably due to erosion, said Paul Woods, with USGS.

“This, of course, in a basin that’s received a bunch of cleanup,” Woods said.

USGS Researchers released the report during a meeting Wednesday of agency scientists in Coeur d’Alene.

Mining industry representatives, who huddled as the study was presented, called the report exaggerated.

Only a fraction of the lead that passed Harrison last year - about 40,000 pounds - was in the dissolved form that people and animals can absorb, a mining company spokeswoman said.

“The movement of lead mixed with sediment as a whole is meaningless biologically,” said Holly Houston, of the Mining Information Office in Coeur d’Alene.

A million pounds of lead rushed down the river in one day during the 1996 floods, said Matt Fein, of Hecla Mining Co.

“This is 500,000 pounds a year,” Fein said.