River advocates speak out for cleanup

Stay and finish the job.

That was the message Wednesday from lovers of the Spokane River and lead-exposed people at a Spokane public comment session on Superfund cleanup of Silver Valley mine wastes that have fouled towns, rivers and wetlands from Mullan to Spokane.

They spoke to the same 19-member National Academy of Sciences panel that heard a far different message from mining advocates at a meeting in Wallace, Idaho, where many people assailed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cleanup as expensive overkill.

At the request of Idaho politicians hostile to the cleanup, the academy is conducting an $850,000 review of the EPA’s decision-making for the 30-year, $359 million project to scrub heavy metals from yards, public areas and river banks in the Coeur d’Alene Basin. Its report will be released next spring.

“I’m here because water runs downhill,” said Paul Quinnett, a Spokane psychiatrist, University of Washington professor and passionate fisherman for 50 years.

The mine-polluted Spokane River “is a beautiful river and I fish it – but I don’t eat the fish. Pregnant women and children are asked not to eat the fish. Is this river the Northwest’s Titanic? If it is, then you’re the rescue team,” Quinnett said.

He urged the scientists to consider the psychological damage to people – a sense of ambivalence – from living along a polluted river. “Ambivalence is an angler fishing a beautiful river and knowing it’s a dying ecosystem,” he said to applause.

Several Silver Valley residents called on the scientists to help lead-exposed people, as well.

Jeff Bergstrom, of Mullan, asked the scientists whether they’d live in a Superfund site if they had a choice.

“Imagine an invisible killer in your neighborhood. It can sneak into the playgrounds your children play at and into the bodies of your children. I’m not talking about a chapter in the X Files. It’s lead and arsenic I’m talking about,” Bergstrom said.

He describe Panhandle Health District educational pamphlets he picked up in Kellogg that warn parents not to grow a vegetable garden and not to let their children eat dirt or lick snowballs or icicles because the dirt may contain high amounts of lead.

“This is scary stuff,” Bergstrom said, noting there is no local clinic to treat people exposed to heavy metals.

Bergstrom also said many Silver Valley residents are afraid to testify in public for fear of retaliation. If they have jobs at companies with ties to mining, “they’d be fired. I’m representing them tonight,” Bergstrom said.

It’s unacceptable for the National Academy to spend $850,000 to “study the studies” of the Silver Valley while people living within the boundaries of the original 21-square-mile Superfund site remain at risk from lead pollution, said Barbara Miller, director of the Silver Valley Community Resource Center in Kellogg.

“People at the Bunker Hill site only want what other people take for granted – clean homes and health intervention,” Miller said.

State Sen. Lisa Brown, a Gonzaga University professor and a Democrat from Spokane’s 3rd Legislative District, said Washington state residents affected by the mine wastes from Idaho are “generally satisfied” with the EPA’s cleanup plans.

“We understand that opinions differ across the border, and the Idaho delegation brought you here. We trust that your review will not be politicized … your job is to assess the long-term risks,” Brown said.

It’s imperative that the academy’s review is credible, said Dr. John Osborn, a Spokane physician and Sierra Club leader who has criticized some committee members because they are consultants to mining companies. “We need the National Academy of Sciences to do a study that’s unassailable in terms of bias and conflicts of interest,” he said.

Spokane officials worry about the potential health effects of mine contamination in the Spokane River, said Dr. Kim Thorburn, Spokane County’s health officer.

She said the Spokane Regional Health District has translated fish consumption advisories into Russian and other languages because immigrant groups heavily fish the river.

About 50 people attended the public comment session in Spokane.

The committee will meet all day today in Coeur d’Alene, starting at 8:30 a.m. at the Best Western Coeur d’Alene Inn, W. 414 Appleway.

They’ll hear from experts about the approximately 77 million tons of heavy metals-contaminated mine sediments at the bottom of Lake Coeur d’Alene and will hear a presentation on children’s health and lead exposure.

The committee plans to use its Coeur d’Alene Basin review as a case study of EPA decision-making that’s applicable to other Superfund sites nationwide.