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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

EPA proceeds with Roosevelt study

Nicholas K. Geranios Associated Press

NORTHPORT, Wash. – As the fine black sand sparkles alongside the blue waters of Lake Roosevelt, it’s hard to believe it is the source of an international dispute.

But the granular material is not sand. It’s slag – waste from the giant lead and zinc smelter located a few miles north in the Canadian town of Trail, British Columbia.

The slag is extremely fine and looks like it contains glass chips. It is so light it floats. Much of it ended up on the shoreline, turning white beaches black.

At a diplomatic impasse with a Canadian company over cleaning the pollution, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in April launched a $20 million study to determine whether the beaches, fish and plants along Lake Roosevelt are safe for humans.

The study comes six years after it was first requested by the Colville Confederated Tribes, whose reservation borders the lake.

“Finally we are out here in the field doing bread-and-butter work,” said David Croxton, manager of the EPA’s Upper Columbia River unit.

This is not the way the EPA wanted the study to proceed. The agency demanded in late 2003 that Teck Cominco Ltd., owner of the smelter, pay for the study. But the company, based in Vancouver, British Columbia, refused, saying it is not subject to U.S. law.

The dispute is now in the hands of diplomats for the two nations.

The EPA contends that as much as 20 million tons of heavy-metal pollutants flowed for decades from the smelter, down the river and into Washington state waters. Smelter operators used to dump the slag into the Columbia River. The dumping stopped in the mid-1990s.

The Colvilles sued the company last July for failing to comply with the cleanup order, and the state of Washington joined the lawsuit in September.

Teck Cominco has proposed spending $13 million to study the pollution at Lake Roosevelt. The EPA rejected the offer, saying the company’s study plans were insufficient.

Teck Cominco has no problem with EPA starting the study alone.

“We’ve never opposed studying the lake,” said Dave Godlewski, a spokesman for Teck Cominco American Ltd., in Spokane.

The study is necessary to establish health risks, and any agreement reached between the two governments is certain to deal with the costs of the work, Godlewski said.

A team of researchers is spending April and May taking and analyzing 400 samples of sediment along a 130-mile stretch of the lake from Grand Coulee Dam to the Canadian border. Lake Roosevelt is the name of the portion of the Columbia River behind the dam.

The samples will be analyzed for toxic substances, such as arsenic, cadmium, copper, lead, mercury and zinc. They’ll also be tested for dioxin, pesticides and other contaminants.

“The beaches should be safe for recreational uses,” predicted Kevin Rochlin of EPA, co-manager of the project.

The study is expected to determine whether people’s health or the environment is at risk, show whether a cleanup program is needed, and develop cleanup options.