Cleanup Coordinator Leaves Post For Army

Damon Darakjy is trading in e-mails for orders, and swapping meetings on mining pollution for military intelligence.

Darakjy, appointed last year by Gov. Dirk Kempthorne to coordinate state environmental efforts in the Coeur d’Alene River basin, leaves that post next month.

The 29-year-old will report at the U.S. Army Intelligence Center at Arizona’s Fort Huachuca on Feb. 22. Darakjy served in the Army Reserve for the last eight years, and plans to pursue a career in military intelligence.

“It’s something I’ve thought about for a number of months now,” he said Tuesday. “I just decided to take that step.”

Working from an office at the Idaho Division of Environmental Quality, Darakjy communicated local concerns about Superfund and other cleanup issues to Kempthorne’s natural resources adviser, Jim Yost.

No decision has been made on whether to replace Darakjy, a spokesman for Kempthorne said.

The state hopes to avoid more Superfund listings in the basin by taking a lead role cleaning up lead and other toxic metals from Silver Valley mining operations.

State environmental chief Steve Allred is working to broker a settlement between mining companies, the Coeur d’Alene Tribe and the federal government. Allred recently hired a former employee at construction giant Morrison-Knudson Corp., to serve as cleanup coordinator in the basin. Kathy Johnson is writing a cleanup plan so the state has a 25-year strategy should the settlement occur, Darakjy said.

He plans to track the process “from a distance,” he said. “I’ll be interested in seeing what happens.”