U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief Christie Todd Whitman's day in North Idaho started with a ceremonial sip of water from Lake Coeur d'Alene to highlight the lake's improved water quality.

It ended with the pleas of lead-exposed people in the Silver Valley to finish the cleanup EPA started over a decade ago at Kellogg's Bunker Hill site.

Whitman's visit began with a breakfast boat trip around Lake Coeur d'Alene. But after her security detail objected to an open-air press conference, her schedule began to slip.

The press conference was moved inside the Coeur d'Alene Resort, where Whitman signed an agreement with Idaho, the Coeur d'Alene Tribe and the Washington Department of Ecology for a new commission to oversee an expanded cleanup in the Coeur d'Alene Basin.

A final plan for EPA's proposed $359 million, 30-year cleanup is scheduled for release at the end of the month.

Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said he'll work with Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., to find funds to clean up pollution "hot spots" throughout the basin. Both are members of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The new Basin Environmental Improvement Project Commission will only deal with pollution inside Idaho. Under Superfund, Idaho is still responsible for 10 percent of the costs of the basin cleanup, said Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne.

A management plan for Lake Coeur d'Alene will be handled outside of Superfund, which Idaho politicians have assailed for years as heavy-handed.

"Lake Coeur d'Alene is drinkable, fishable and swimmable," Whitman said.

The lake management plan was adopted in 1996, but has never been implemented or funded by the Idaho Legislature.

The Coeur d'Alene Tribe has been trying for more than a decade to protect the lake, tribal chairman Ernie Stensgar said.

Heavy metals pollution east of the lake and in the Spokane River will be cleaned up using Superfund authority.

"In Washington, the cleanup is not governed by this commission, but by the (Superfund) listing," said Washington Department of Ecology Director Tom Fitzsimmons.

Last fall, Fitzsimmons signed a "side agreement" with EPA that gives Washington a chance to block any Idaho move to delist the lake from Superfund.

Whether Washington exercises that veto will depend on the effectiveness of the lake management plan, he said.

Regional environmental groups are unhappy with the Idaho-dominated commission and with Fitzsimmons' agreement, which they say had no public review.

EPA still has oversight over the commission, said Mike Gearheard, EPA Superfund chief in Seattle and one of several EPA staffers who accompanied Whitman.

"We don't intend to walk away from our responsibility to protect human health and the environment," he said.

As Whitman's schedule slipped, her bus tour of the Silver Valley was compressed into a quick freeway dash up Interstate 90 to Wallace.

She had no chance to visit the 21-square-mile Bunker Hill Superfund site.

The bus held local politicians and community members, many of them hostile to EPA's presence in the Silver Valley. The tour was moderated by Bill Booth, a former Hecla official.

The bus turned up Canyon Creek for a look at the removal of mine tailings by the Silver Valley Trustees, a now-defunct group that used $4.6 million from a legal settlement with mining companies to address some of the pollution.

In Ninemile Creek, Whitman got off the bus briefly. She was surrounded by people who told her EPA's proposal for a $92 million program to clean up 1,000 yards to protect children is overkill.

Among them: Idaho Lt. Gov. Jack Riggs, a physician, who said the lead issue had created "controversy and hysteria."

The new commission will help EPA make decisions about the acceptable level of risk for the community, Whitman replied.

The quick trip left others feeling snubbed. Some of Whitman's harshest critics weren't invited, said Paul Friend, editor and publisher of the Idaho News Observer.

"She lifted her middle finger to us. She didn't need to spend time in Spokane with eco-freaks from Seattle, or with George `Promise Keeper' Nethercutt," said Friend, in a sarcastic reference to Nethercutt's broken term limits pledge.

On Monday, Whitman visited with activists outside her Spokane press conference and attended a $250-a-head fund-raiser for Nethercutt.

After a private meeting with the Coeur d'Alene tribal council at the Cataldo Mission, Whitman met with a group of environmental activists.

Barbara Miller, founder of the Silver Valley People's Action Coalition, told Whitman she grew up at the mission with her 11 brothers and sisters.

"The area is beautiful and serene -- but it really isn't," Miller said, referring to the invisible pollution.

She asked Whitman to finish cleaning up the Bunker Hill site. Her coalition is pushing for a lead clinic to treat low-income, exposed people.

Rocky Hill said he is one of them. Born in 1955 in Kellogg, Hill said his childhood in Smelterville near the Bunker Hill smelter stacks was plagued by sickness.

He said he had blood levels four times today's safety limit, and struggled with medical bills.

"What is going to happen to people like me?" he asked.

In a brief interview at the end of the day, Whitman said she was struck by the passionate convictions of people involved in the Silver Valley cleanup.

The new basin commission will help EPA accelerate the cleanup, she said. "Cleanup must be measurable. We want progress, not process," she added.