Public Asked To Help Track Cleanup Workshops Will Give People A Forum To Assess State’S Plans For Silver Valley

Twenty Silver Valley families have kids with too much lead in their blood this winter.

Of 524 children tested from 1996 through 1999, 58 had blood-lead levels at or above the safety threshold, according to new information released this week by a state contractor.

The fact that children in this mining district suffer from too much lead in their blood isn’t new.

But a series of public workshops that starts tonight are, and government officials hope they will shed some light on ways to reduce blood lead levels in the valley’s children.

Right now, the Panhandle Health District finds the kids with high lead levels and counsels families on reducing exposure.

Until there’s a mining pollution cleanup plan in place, however, that’s as far as it goes.

That’s why those children are important: Pinpointing direct connections between contamination and lead in blood may help drive cleanup.

A cleanup plan based on hot spots where kids show high blood lead, as proposed by Idaho’s top officials, could stem from this data. Federal and Coeur d’Alene tribal officials, meanwhile, are pushing for a broad cleanup effort.

The governments talk every week via conference calls, and those Silver Valley kids are a subject of the conversation.

“Everybody that’s watching this process on a weekly basis, that’s what they’re watching,” said Ian von Lindern, president of Moscow-based TerraGraphics Environmental Engineering, the state contractor.

Now the public wants to get involved.

A workshop tonight on gauging human health risks posed by lead and other mining-related metals is the first public airing of Idaho’s research.

It’s also the first of three workshops scheduled by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to bring citizens up to speed on Coeur d’Alene River basin cleanup plans.

An Idaho citizens group demanded more of a voice late last year. That group, the Citizen’s Advisory Committee, serves as the “reality check” on a huge, ongoing EPA study of mining pollution and cleanup in the basin.

Rose Lake rancher Frank Frutchey, a member of the CAC, said he hopes the workshops put new weight on citizen input.

“In the past, those we had resulted in Risk Assessment 101 or Ecology 101 - all presentation and very little participation,” Frutchey said.

The agenda for the new workshops reads like a chemistry class syllabus, spattered with techno-jargon such as “intake scenarios” and “toxicity assessment.”

But the workshops will give people the chance to double-check the state’s assumptions, such as the time an average child plays in his or her yard, said Michele Nanni of The Lands Council, a Spokane environmental group.

“Citizens have asked for a report, so we’re getting one. I think it will start the learning curve,” said Nanni, who is a member of Idaho and Washington citizens groups watching the cleanup.

State decisions in the human health risk assessment to be aired tonight include:

Mapping out eight geographical areas in the Coeur d’Alene basin to use for gauging risk of exposures;

Identifying eight “chemicals of concern”: lead, cadmium, arsenic, zinc, antimony, mercury, iron and manganese;

Examining the amount of pollution tribal members ingest by eating Coeur d’Alene River fish and water potatoes, a tuber used as a traditional food source.

Idaho officials are hoping to broker a deal to avoid any Superfund listings in the basin outside Bunker Hill.

The state got a six-month reprieve from Superfund, to broker settlement of a lawsuit between the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, U.S. Department of Justice and numerous mining companies.

Those discussions won’t affect work on the overall cleanup plan, EPA community liaison Dick Martindale said.

“We’re going to continue with the process unless and until we get direction otherwise,” Martindale said.

This sidebar appeared with the story: COMING UP Workshops

A series of public workshops with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency starts tonight.

The human health risk assessment workshop starts at 7 p.m. at the Silver Hills Middle School in Osburn. A draft version of the assessment is due out in May.

An ecological risk assessment workshop is scheduled for Wednesday from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Kootenai County Administration Building in Coeur d’Alene. A draft version of the assessment is due out in March.

A feasibility study workshop is planned Feb. 16 from 5 to 8 p.m. The study, the first look at potential cleanup plans, is due in May.