Wastewater At Issue

As environmentalists complain that federal regulators are dragging their feet on water quality, officials say they are trying to hammer out a solution with North Idaho mining companies.

The U.S. Environmental Protection agency met with Silver Valley mining companies last month, said the EPA’s Bill Riley, in Seattle. The agency wants companies to recycle as much wastewater as possible.

New mines recycle 100 percent of their process water, Riley said. He wouldn’t expect the same level of existing companies, he said, but mines such as Hecla Mining Co.’s Lucky Friday are operating under outdated permits.

The Lucky Friday’s permit - while not expired was first issued in 1977. “Those permits are old and they need to be updated,” Riley said.

The mines insist their permits are legal, and that federal regulators have delayed progress on new permits.

Mines and wastewater treatment plants are the only permitted pollution sources in the basin.

But mining companies say they contribute only a fraction of the pollution flowing into the Coeur d’Alene River, compared with historic mining activity and tailings piles.

“The mining areas and the sewage plants are not the problem,” said Holly Houston, of the Mining Information Office in Coeur d’Alene.