EPA speaks about water fears

Despite their best appeals to justify the clean-up of the Milltown Dam and its release of sediment, the Environmental Protection Agency wasn't able to placate Thompson Falls residents angry at higher levels of arsenic in the Clark Fork River.

EPA's Russ Forba gave a detailed presentation last Wednesday night at Thompson Falls’ high school to explain to residents that there was no cause for alarm about higher arsenic levels in their water. He said that at best he assumed that the higher levels would be minimal and posed no threat to resident's health.

Forba also said that recreation be it swimming or fishing was safe in Thompson Falls notwithstanding the hundreds of thousands of tons of sediments that were passing downstream and that would eventually collect in the Thompson Falls Reservoir.

For those residents concerned the EPA distributed test kits and offered free testing to residents who had private wells near the border of the Clark Fork. Yet, Forba said that the EPA claimed no liability to fix private wells should a test come back positive for higher levels of arsenic.

“I'm not convinced, I don't think anybody from DEQ or EPA is convinced that for some reason this extra, what we think is 600 thousand tons, Is materially going to affect the volume that is already there,” Forba said.

At the question and comment period after Forba's presentation residents were far from convinced about their water safety and questioned Forba about why PPL Montana cited arsenic levels to be 12 times higher, copper to be five times and zinc and lead to be four times higher after the breach.

Forba's responded to the question by saying that though there have been different predictions and models, but based upon the data the EPA had seen, they thought that the water still posed no threat to Thompson Falls.

“We expected 10 tons over four high-flow seasons and this is in our scouring, I admit we're going to have about double that and yes I was a little surprised about that,” he said and again explained that even with the higher volumes there still would not be a significant increase of arsenic to pose health risks.

Citizens questioned Forba about why they took no core samples or tested any wells before they decided to release the contents of the Milltown Dam. To the second question about testing he said that the EPA simply did think it was important to take so many samples.

“We don't think it's our responsibility to take a million cores, basically thousands of cores, to evaluate how much arsenic is in Thompson Falls,” Forba said. Yet when an audience member asked if they had taken even one core sample or tested one private well in Thompson Falls before the breach Forba conceded that they had not.

Thompson Falls Geologist Jon Sonju asked if Forba he was familiar with the geology around Thompson Falls. Forba said he was not and Sonju told him that wells could produce different test results depending on the location of the well. He said that to emphasize that despite testing of wells or core samples that were done near the Milltown Dam or in Missoula wells in Thompson Falls could produce different results. “You can't even predict what one well is going to do compared to another one,” Sonju said.

Forba countered his argument by saying that “just because you have sediment there that has a higher concentration, it's the volume that's really going to contribute to how much arsenic is really there.” In which case, Forba pointed to the fact that the EPA had seen reports about a safe amount of volume that was floating down stream.

When asked about the University of Montana's report that there were potentially toxic concentrations of contaminants in the water. Forba said he had not seen the report and that the numbers could have been invented by newspapers.

Throughout the night, Forba continually told citizens that there was nothing to worry about and that specifically, at most, the breach would have only caused an estimated one percent of the arsenic that was already within the river. He said that the rest was a natural accumulation not caused by the breach.

“Now, were not saying that it's good that it came down, that isn't the point,” Forba said. “What we're saying is that we had to implement this project Š What we're saying is that the volumes, and I don't care if it's 600 or 800 thousand tons, is small in comparison to what arrives here both in arsenic and in tons of sediment.”