Giving nature a chance
EPA plan to help land heal is a mixed bag of experiments, proven techniques

Benjamin Shors
Staff writer

Christopher Anderson - The Spokesman-Review A full moon rises over Upriver Dam in the Spokane Valley. Mine waste from the Silver Valley has flowed downstream and accumulated behind the dam and may need to be dredged, the EPA says.

CATALDO -- This is a place of postcard beauty.

The Coeur d'Alene River swings through a valley of farms and wetlands, past fat willows and flocks of ducks and swans, before mixing, exhausted, with the blue water of Lake Coeur d'Alene.

But buried in this basin's river bottoms, hidden in its wetlands, and invisible in the water are more than 100 million tons of contaminated sediment.

While not obvious, mining pollution has a very real impact on hundreds of species of fish, birds and mammals living in the Coeur d'Alene Basin. Dozens -- if not hundreds -- of waterfowl die each year after ingesting lead-contaminated sediments. Miles of zinc-choked rivers are unable to support fish populations. Some streams are almost entirely devoid of life.

"There is such massive contamination, that to clean it all up would be technically and financially impossible," said Cami Grandinetti, Bunker Hill project manager for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "You have to ask yourself, `What are you really trying to achieve?' "

Of the $359 million the EPA proposes to spend in the basin in the next 30 years, about $267 million would go toward cleaning up the environment. The rest would help protect human health by reducing exposure to lead.

But even after 30 years of cleanup, some streams likely won't support fish populations, and some wetlands will remain toxic to waterfowl. About 3 million cubic yards of sediment are considered inaccessible -- buried beneath Interstate 90, state highways and residential and commercial developments.

And even after cleanup, it will take 300 to 500 years before zinc pollution in the basin returns to safe levels for aquatic life, the EPA estimates.

From a cleanup standpoint, the breadth and depth of the ecological problems are overwhelming.

"A lot of people feel that losing a few birds is not that big of a problem," said Jack Gunderman, a biologist with the Coeur d'Alene Tribe. "But I think it's bigger than just losing a few birds. We have a real serious problem with the ecosystem."

In the 19th century, explorers said the Coeur d'Alene River "teemed with trout." But by 1932, a federal study found the river decimated by mining pollution. For 50 miles of the river, the study found no fish or fauna.

Today, about 20 miles of the South Fork of the Coeur d'Alene River -- from Wallace to Kingston -- are unable to support reproducing fish, and pollution levels in some Silver Valley waterways are 100 times the permitted federal levels. Canyon and Ninemile creeks north of Wallace are essentially devoid of aquatic life.

In the Coeur d'Alene River valley, 80 percent of the wetlands have lead levels that are lethal to waterfowl. Lead poisoning is responsible for 96 percent of all tundra swan deaths in the basin, compared with 20 to 30 percent nationally. Researchers found metals-related problems in 21 of 24 bird species, from ducks to songbirds.

"On any day, we can pick up 20 or 30 dead birds in a few hours," said Dan Audet, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist. "You can't chase birds from 18,000 acres of flood plain. Piece by piece, you have to try to reduce the overall acreage that is lethal to these birds."

The agency's 30-year plan takes an incremental approach, using a mix of experiments and research, combined with well-known techniques.

Although cleanup at the Bunker Hill Superfund site focused on human health, EPA did some environmental cleanup.

In 1998, at the Smelterville Flats along the Coeur d'Alene River, the agency temporarily moved the entire river, and excavated tons of contaminated sediment.

Now, the once-desolate flood plain supports grasses and willows.

But while the aesthetics have improved, the agency remains uncertain how much the pollution flowing from the site has been reduced, Grandinetti says.

The basinwide cleanup hinges on controlling those pollution sources in the Silver Valley that continue to feed the Coeur d'Alene River.

In 1999, a half-million pounds of lead flowed past Harrison into Lake Coeur d'Alene. In floods, the effect is exacerbated, as water sweeps over polluted flood plains and then drains back into the river.

"We don't think the situation has improved very much at all," said Paul Wood, the U.S. Geological Survey's chief scientist for the basin. "We have seen a downward trend with zinc levels for the last three years. But we don't think three years of data is enough to deduce a trend."

Washington state officials want a commitment from EPA to reduce zinc by 20 percent because Washington's water quality standards are already exceeded when the Spokane River crosses the state line.

Zinc poses the biggest threat to downstream fish populations, proving lethal to cutthroat and bull trout even at very low levels.

EPA plans to use an experimental filter -- consisting mostly of ground fishbone -- to bind up the heavy metals in Ninemile and Canyon creeks, among the largest sources of heavy metals for the Coeur d'Alene River.

These "reactive walls" will be buried to the bedrock, capturing both surface and groundwater in narrow sections of the creeks.

Even if these filters work as planned, the fishbone will eventually become saturated with metals and have to be periodically replaced.

If left untreated, Silver Valley streams will continue to carry heavy metals into the Coeur d'Alene River, where a string of lateral lakes and wetlands attract thousands of waterfowl each year.

Here, where the river frequently breaches its banks, the agency plans to focus on wetlands used by waterfowl but aren't at a high risk to be recontaminated with metals.

Focusing on shallow waters where waterfowl typically feed, EPA plans to excavate some of the contaminated soil. Other areas will be capped by adding a layer of new, clean sediment on top of the pollution. The agency has budgeted $81 million to clean up the wetlands.

Part of that money will go toward purchasing land or easements to add 2,669 acres of safe wetland feeding areas, and another 1,859 acres of safe lake areas. Adjoining farmland may be purchased and converted to wetlands. Hunting may be allowed on the most contaminated wetlands to help haze the birds from the area, while it may be banned in the cleaner lakes to encourage the birds to feed there.

"It's about minimizing the risk," said Nick Zilka with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality in Kellogg. "There will be some partial removals (of soil), but the approach is to manage it in place, to try to somehow isolate it from human health and the environment."

One experimental approach is to treat the soil with chemicals in an attempt to make lead less harmful to waterfowl. Preliminary results of a state-led study indicate that treating the soil with phosphate makes lead less dangerous to birds, but makes arsenic more soluble -- and more likely to enter waterways, including Lake Coeur d'Alene.

In Lake Coeur d'Alene, 75 million tons of metals-laden mud sit on the lake bottom, up to four-feet deep in some spots.

State and tribal scientists hope to simply keep the metals from moving -- both within the lake and downstream into the Spokane River.

When EPA introduced its cleanup plan last fall, it left Lake Coeur d'Alene out, at the urging of state and local officials who worried that federal work would sully the region's reputation as a tourism hot spot.

The responsibility for waste in the lake shifted to the state of Idaho, the Coeur d'Alene Tribe, and several other resource agencies. The Lake Management Plan -- written in 1996 but never fully implemented -- is currently being updated, and local officials hope it will convince EPA to take the lake off the Superfund list.

EPA acknowledges that the lake is fine for human health, but zinc levels remain twice the federal standards for aquatic life.

On an annual basis, more metals enter the lake from the Coeur d'Alene River than flow out into the Spokane River.

Stabilizing the banks of the Coeur d'Alene River -- which are colored red by the metals -- will help prevent erosion and keep metals from entering the lake.

Downstream, in the Spokane River, EPA will spend $10 million cleaning shorelines identified by the state of Washington, both to protect human health and the environment. The plan calls for capping and removing soil from 10 sites between the stateline and Spokane. EPA also plans to dredge or cap 260,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment built up behind Upriver Dam in Spokane.

Both the state and EPA concede that recontamination is a serious threat to any cleanup, emphasizing the need to start at the Silver Valley sources and work downstream.

"It's going to be a longterm process," said Woods, the USGS's lead scientist. "It's basically taken 100 years to create the problem. Why would you be able to clean it up any faster?"