Rail site cleanup slated for summer

Union Pacific and BNSF Railway have agreed to clean up historic mining waste at old rail sites in Idaho’s Silver Valley. Work is expected to begin this summer on the Wallace Yard and Spur Lines, which includes a 43-acre defunct rail yard near the Wallace Chamber & Visitors Bureau and 15 miles of abandoned spur lines in the Nine Mile and Canyon creek drainages. The companies agreed to do the work in a consent decree approved Monday in federal court. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state of Idaho were also parties to the consent decree.