Spokane

Silver Valley cleanup funding boosted
EPA will provide $4.1 million more than last year

Karen Dorn Steele
Staff writer

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will provide $17.7 million for work this year to scrub mining waste from Idaho's Silver Valley.

That's $4.1 million more than last year, agency administrator Christie Whitman said in a June 26 letter to Idaho's congressional delegation.

The money is coming from the EPA Superfund account, funds switched from other EPA projects that didn't spend all their budgeted money, and a recent legal settlement with mining giant Asarco.

The big cleanup from Mullan to the Spokane River in Washington is a major priority, with 40 percent of the EPA's regional planning and design budget devoted to it, Whitman said.

The highest priorities: Cleaning up more residential yards at Kellogg and other nearby towns to lessen the danger of lead contamination; scrubbing high-use recreation areas and remediating defunct mine and mill sites near populated areas to decrease health risks.

The Idaho congressional delegation wrote to Whitman in early June, pressing the agency to release funds to continue cleanup work.

Whitman's response came during her last week as agency head. She has resigned and will return to New Jersey.

Republican Sens. Larry Craig and Mike Crapo said they are pleased with the increased funding.

"This funding, when added to the nearly $3 million from the U.S. Economic Development Administration, could create well over 800 jobs in the Coeur d'Alene Basin, and that is very welcome news," Crapo said in a statement.

The EDA money will be used for water, sewer and utility improvements in Kellogg and Smelterville.

Of the EPA total, $4.8 million will go to clean up lead-contaminated residential yards within the 21-square mile Bunker Hill Superfund site at Kellogg, said EPA manager Sheila Eckmann.

Another $2.7 million will be spent to operate the Bunker Hill site's Central Treatment Plant, which treats millions of gallons of metals-polluted mine water still gushing from the Bunker Hill mine and other sources.

In addition, EPA is expecting $10.2 million to clean up yards and recreational areas in the Coeur d'Alene Basin east and west of Kellogg.

It's the first year that EPA has gotten money for the expanded Superfund cleanup, which stretches from Mullan to the Spokane River in Washington.

Work in the Basin has been delayed in part because EPA still doesn't have a signed Superfund agreement with the state of Idaho, Eckmann said.

"We're getting a late start, but this is only our first year," she added.

Under Superfund law, Idaho is responsible for matching 10 percent of the cleanup cost. The EPA-Idaho agreement is close to completion, Eckmann said.

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