Just this past week, in a move that was not unexpected expected and long-overdue, the Centers for Disease Control lowered the "level of concern" for the amount of lead in a child's bloodstream. This new CDC policy expands significantly the number of children that should be considered for lead poisoning interventions. The level of concern [...]
Seems the Yellowstone River will be dealing with what the Gulf of Mexico has been dealing with for more than a year now. And we are again reminded that that cleaning things up is so much harder than not making the mess in the first place. This time, the still-high Yellowstone River flows are illustrating [...]
Announced Monday and likely to be approved by a federal court in the next month or two, Hecla Mining and the U.S. EPA have settled longstanding Superfund litigation. The settlement establishes Hecla’s contribution toward the costs of the Coeur d'Alene basin minewaste cleanup. According to news reports, Hecla has agreed to pay some $263 million [...]
Tundra swans are dying again this year. Like they do every year. Lured to the beautiful lower Coeur d'Alene basin’s waterways and wetlands for rest and food, the birds end up, quite literally, choked on sediments contaminated with lead. The lead, of course, is flushed downstream by flooding from the legacy of mining in the [...]
In our line of work, we often need to remind ourselves that not everyone knows what we’re talking about. When we advocate for cleanup of the Coeur d'Alene basin, for example, we sometimes forget that not everyone knows that it’s a big mess. Recently, the Coeur d'Alene Tribe and Idaho’s DEQ did a survey of [...]
Late last week, we were forwarded an email from Greg Clark with the U.S. Geological Survey, whose team did some water monitoring during the flood event January 18th of this year. The monitoring in Harrison, where the Coeur d'Alene River flows into Coeur d'Alene Lake, shows that the conveyor belt of contamination from the upper [...]
We sent a version of this post to our friends and members earlier this week, and we thought we'd share our thoughts on 2010 here as well. We've had a pretty good year at KEA. As this end-of-year letter is being written, the Kootenai County Commissioners are finally completing work on the long-awaited comprehensive plan. [...]
Kootenai Environmental Alliance, along with Idaho Conservation League, Spokane Riverkeeper, Idaho Rivers United and The Lands Council submitted comments today to the EPA on the proposed amendment to the Upper Coeur d'Alene Basin Superfund Record of Decision. The comments to the controversial EPA cleanup plan focused on several key points: (1) to ensure that the [...]
We've heard from a number of friends and members that they are being robocalled from the phony front group "Citizens for a Prosperous Silver Valley" which opposes the proposed cleanup in the Silver Valley. We wish we could give better advice as to how to shut down the annoying phone calls, but we're afraid that [...]
The November 23 deadline for comments on the proposed EPA cleanup for the upper Coeur d'Alene basin is fast approaching, and we received the following email from EPA regarding how comments are being handled: Many people are wondering how EPA is handling public comments on the Proposed Cleanup Plan for the Upper Basin, and when [...]