Idaho

Bunker Hill gets $9 million for cleanup
Extra EPA funds for yards, repairs
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Benjamin Shors
Staff writer

Coeur d'Alene _ The Environmental Protection Agency has budgeted an extra $9 million for ongoing cleanup work at the Bunker Hill Superfund site.

Regional EPA officials requested the money this spring, after Asarco Inc. and Hecla Mining Co. failed to produce suitable cleanup plans for Silver Valley yards.

About $4.8 million will be spent remediating 120 lead-contaminated yards at homes in the 21-square-mile Superfund site, according to Cami Grandenetti, the EPA's Bunker Hill project manager.

Another $4.7 million will go toward repairs at the site's treatment plant, where a lined storage pond needs cleanup and repair. A corroding storage tank will also be fixed, Grandenetti said.

The EPA had initially provided about $4 million this year for work at the 20-year-old site.

"You never know what you're going to get until the dust settles," said Mike Gearheard, EPA Superfund manager in Seattle. "This enables us to do some things we otherwise wouldn't have been able to do."

The money will not be funneled through the new Basin Environmental Improvement Project Commission, established to oversee the EPA's $359 million cleanup in the larger Coeur d'Alene Basin.

"This (money) isn't for the Basin cleanup -- this is for Bunker Hill," Grandenetti said.

In a letter to Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo, an EPA official said the $9 million came after an end-of-year budget reshuffling -- part of an increased effort to quickly move money from stalled cleanups to those projects ready to start.

The new money "highlights the Bush administration's commitment to Coeur d'Alene," said Marianne Horinko, assistant administrator for the EPA's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response.

"We all want the cleanup done as quickly as possible and these funds will assist in bringing us closer to completing the activities necessary," Crapo said.

Crapo has pushed for $250 million that would be funneled through the controversial Basin Commission, but has failed to win EPA support for his bill. The Idaho-dominated commission would oversee the EPA's cleanup in Idaho's Coeur d'Alene Basin, but has been protested by downstream groups in Washington.

According to the release, Horinko is committed to "fully meet the funding levels contemplated in (Crapo's) legislation."

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