Idaho’s Silver Valley in North Idaho stretches approximately 40 miles from the Idaho-Montana border at Lookout Pass to just east of the town of Coeur d’Alene. If you’ve spent any time in North Idaho’s Silver Valley, you know it’s a place of scenic forests and mountain streams. However, you also might know about the area’s long history of mining and its pollution to the Valley’s air and water. In several recent blogs, ICL has touched on some of the past and current threats from historic and ongoing mining as well as water pollution from the Galena Mine.
Trouble (again!) at the Galena Mine
The Galena Mine Complex (owned and operated by US Silver) is a silver, lead, and copper mine located just west of Wallace, Idaho, and adjacent to the South Fork Coeur d’Alene River. Spurred on by the threat of legal action from ICL in 2023, the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and US Silver reached a settlement to address hundreds of water pollution violations (primarily related to arsenic). That settlement included a $222,320 fine, and interim arsenic pollution limits until the mine meets legal deadlines to upgrade their water treatment facility.
However, since March of 2023, the mine has had approximately 150 water pollution violations, but this time, for excess lead and mercury. In a mission to continue to hold bad environmental actors accountable until the job is done, ICL again has threatened legal action against US Silver to address these new violations. DEQ may again choose to step in and reach a settlement agreement with US Silver, but if not, ICL stands ready to advance legal action.
A new future at the Bunker Hill Mine
The Bunker Hill Mine located next to the town of Kellogg operated a lead refining smelter for decades that caused the most significant pollution in the Silver Valley’s history. The area is now part of one of the nation’s largest and most complex federal Superfund cleanup sites.
Now a new company called Bunker Hill Mining Corporation (BHMC), which is headquartered in Toronto, Canada, is in the process of trying to restart underground mining operations at the site for zinc, silver, and lead. BHMC proposes a modern mining approach considerate of the environment and the community. While both zinc and lead have important industrial uses and new operations would exist at a previously disturbed site (rather than disturbing untouched land and forest), it is important to consider the environmental threats any mining operation always poses.
For example, as a result of past activity, the Bunker Hill Mine continuously discharges polluted water from its tunnels. This water is treated at the nearby Central Treatment Plant (CTP), a government operated water treatment plant used to clean polluted water from several sources in the area. Under a legal agreement, BHMC has been paying to treat the polluted tunnel water at the CTP, but it is unclear how this agreement might change when the amount of water and pollutants may increase due to BHMC’s new mining operations. DEQ, the Environmental Protection Agency, and BHMC are currently in discussions about this exact topic. One proposed solution would be for BHMC to take over operation and/or ownership of the CTP. Given that the CTP’s operation is critical to treating other polluted water in the area (which BHMC has no economic interest or stake in), the prospects of a private entity responsible for this water treatment is concerning.
ICL has already engaged with BHC to learn more about their proposed operation and relay our concerns. As operations at the mine continue to develop, ICL will diligently watch to see how things unfold.
How you can help
To help protect North Idaho’s waters, consider becoming an ICL member and making a contribution to support ICL’s North Idaho Lakes Advocacy program, which focuses on protecting the waters of Idaho’s panhandle from degradation, pollution, and poor land use management. If you have any specific questions or comments on the Galena Mine or arsenic water pollution, you can contact ICL’s Conservation Associate Will Tiedemann.
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