Second Road Best For States’ Interests

You’d never know by looking at all the summer activity on our region’s lakes, rivers and beaches that the Coeur d’Alene River Basin has reached a crossroads.

One road leads to a trial next January, in the Coeur d’Alene Indian Tribe’s $1 billion lawsuit against seven Silver Valley mining companies. The same road also leads to Superfund designations beyond the Silver Valley mining district.

The other road points to a settlement that would provide $250 million to help clean up some toxic “hot spots” that contaminate our corner of paradise. These hot spots contain metals carried downstream from mines and smelters operated during the past century.

Civic leaders and elected officials from Coeur d’Alene and Spokane County are right to prefer the second way. Costly litigation and additional Superfund listings benefit only high-paid attorneys and government bureaucrats. It’s past time to address basin problem areas and remove the stigma that has hung over us for years.

The Coeur d’Alene tribe and its co-plaintiff, the U.S. Department of Justice, should give serious consideration to the mines’ settlement offer.

The offer - $154 million over 30 years and another $96 million in royalties tied to metals prices - is reasonable on two fronts. It’s fair coming from an industry that is struggling to survive. The price of metals has been at or near bottom for years. Also, it makes sense in view of the 1999 ruling in federal court that current mining firms can’t be held liable for the entire cleanup cost.

If nothing else, the offer proves the mines and the state of Idaho have tried in good faith to settle. Last December, the Environmental Protection Agency agreed to hold off designating more Superfund sites in North Idaho if the state showed progress in trying to reach an out-of-court agreement. The EPA needs to continue showing restraint.

Additional Superfund sites would hurt a region that has worked hard to attract new industry and grown dependent on tourism. Spokane County Commissioner Kate McCaslin made that point when she said: “There is a huge stigma about having a Superfund site. I don’t think you see businesses flooding to `the Box’ to employ all the people who have been jobless for years.”

Those who scoff at such concerns ignore the region’s best interests. In fact, federal dollars to clean up downstream hot spots could be available without an expansion of Superfund boundaries. And the most important cleanup, already occurring, is at the source of the contamination - the mining and smelting sites, already within the Superfund boundaries.

For decades, the Coeur d’Alene tribe has been a good neighbor and partner in the area’s economic growth. Even after filing its suit against the mining companies in 1991, the tribe said it was open to a reasonable settlement. Now, the mines have made an offer that would help clean up the tribe’s ancestral waterways. With money for Superfund work dwindling and metal prices stagnant, the offer may be the last, best chance to fix basin contamination.