Idaho’s Silver Valley the Battleground for $600-Million Lawsuit

When the federal government needed lead for bullets and silver for machines during two world wars, the mines of the Silver Valley in northern Idaho ran nonstop.

“I’m bringing you a plea from the boys in the service,” Capt. John Edwardsen of the War Department said on a visit to nearby Wallace during World War II. “You give them the bullets to fight with, and they’ll put them where they need to be.”

Now, half a century later, the surviving mining industries are defending themselves against a $600-million federal lawsuit and a demand that they clean up a century’s worth of pollution.

The undertaking is expected to cost at least $1 billion, one of the biggest environmental restorations ever ordered by the government.

There’s no doubt the land and water around here were despoiled in the quest for lead, silver and other materials for the wars. Bunker Creek runs a bright orange because of metals pollution. Trees and grass are dead. Mountainsides are gray.

But the mining industry is seeing red over the lawsuit.

“Why are only the four surviving companies being singled out for violations that were not violations at the time?” asked Holly Houston of the Coeur d’Alene Basin Mining Information Office, to whom the companies referred all queries.

“The federal government was right in there, controlling and operating mines and controlling pricing and the pay of people in World War I and World War II.

“We are taking our 1997 eyes and judging what happened long ago. That’s not right.”

The four companies have countersued, contending the government should be held responsible for much of the pollution because it failed to regulate mining wastes in the 1,500-square-mile river basin.

“It’s an interesting irony to hear the industry saying, ‘If only you had regulated us more,’ ” said Mark Solomon of the Inland Empire Public Lands Council, an environmental group based just across the state line in Spokane, Wash.

The companies that operate here today are corporate descendants of those that plundered the region a century ago, said Solomon, whose organization pushed for the Justice Department lawsuit.

Although the government did push wartime production, he added, the companies eagerly complied and made huge profits in doing so.

The Silver Valley is a potent symbol of the exploitation of the American West. Snowcapped peaks glisten above mounds of mine tailing that are four stories tall. The 50-mile-long valley of narrow canyons in the sparsely populated region is riddled with hundreds of miles of underground mines.

Mining waste washes down rivers and streams into Lake Coeur d’Alene, whose sparkling waters are said to cover a lake bed saturated with heavy metals.

More than $5 billion in silver, lead, zinc and other metals have been blasted from underground mines here since the 1880s, enriching some of the biggest names in American business, including the Rockefellers and Guggenheims.

In wartime, the government did everything it could to speed up production of critical war materials.

The region was the nation’s biggest producer of lead, used in bullets. It was also a major producer of zinc, used in bullet casings, and silver, used in many vehicles and engines.

Now, the government is seeking more than $600 million in damages from Asarco Inc. of New York City, Sunshine Mining Inc. of Boise, Hecla Mining Co. and Coeur d’Alene Mines Corp., both of Coeur d’Alene, plus four current or past subsidiaries of those companies.

The defendants are the survivors of about 100 mining companies that have worked in the region over the last 120 years, dumping 72 million tons of toxic mine and mill tailing--essentially, ground-up rock--into area waterways.

The lawsuit, filed in Boise in March 1996, is deep in the discovery stage, in which the two sides swap information.

“It is critical that those who damage our environment with years of mining activities--not the American taxpayer--pay the cleanup costs,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Gen. Lois Schiffer said in announcing the lawsuit.

The mining companies blame politics for the lawsuit, saying it makes points with environmentalists for the Clinton administration.

Justice Department spokesman Bill Brooks in Washington, D.C., declined comment because the case is in litigation. But environmental groups who pushed for the lawsuit say the mining companies brought it on themselves by refusing to spend real money on cleanup.

“The lawsuit was brought about by the unwillingness of the companies to admit their responsibility for the pollution,” Solomon said.

The mining companies contend environmental damage claims were resolved under their 1985 settlement with the state of Idaho, which required the industry to set up a $4.5-million trust fund. Cleanup financed by that fund has been underway for years.

But Solomon said the fund is not big enough to cover the damage.

The Silver Valley already contains the nation’s second-largest Superfund site, a 20-square-mile box centered on the town of Kellogg and the former Bunker Hill silver smelter, last operated by Gulf Resources, which is not a party to the lawsuit.

About 7,000 people live within the site, which is in the midst of an extensive cleanup to restore hillsides devastated by pollution and waterways tainted with lead, zinc and cadmium.

The lawsuit addresses pollution outside that Superfund site.

Idaho’s conservative congressional delegation recently introduced legislation they hope will lead to cleanup by putting the lawsuit to rest.

“It’s time we stopped litigating against one another and started working together to provide a healthy environment for our children,” said Rep. Helen Chenoweth (R-Idaho). “The lawyers have been in charge for far too long.”

The bill would create a 14-member commission to develop a cleanup plan over two years. It also would release the mining companies from liability in exchange for their entering into settlement negotiations led by Idaho’s governor.

Under the proposal, the mining companies and the federal government would pay for the cleanup.

Environmentalists say the bill merely bails out mining companies.

The Justice Department is declining comment on the legislation.

Houston, the industry spokeswoman, estimated that $35 million has been spent on environmental studies in the Silver Valley in recent years, and the mining companies have spent $20 million on legal bills.

“A million dollars could do an awful lot of work in cleaning up the basin,” she added.