MDEQ talks Superfund

The head of the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) and several other representatives from the organization met with the Mineral County Commissioners and other interested parties at the commissioner’s meeting room in Superior Wednesday to discuss concerns about listing the Flat Creek Mine area as a Superfund site.

“I personally want to know what the county’s interest is in pursuing a possible listing,” said Richard Opper, head of MDEQ.

The Flat Creek Mine site is the home of a former mine that closed in 1896 according to Jim Schultz, the self-proclaimed “Lord of Flat Creek.”

Schultz, who lives near the mine site, said that the mine closed when its profits began to drop and a state law requiring mines to have at least two access points forced it to close.

Since then the property was bought by the now-bankrupt ASARCO., which is responsible for the cleanup on its property.

The county and town of Superior are considering applying to list the town as a Superfund site because the mine tailings that contain potentially dangerous heavy metals dispersed throughout the town and used as fill dirt.

Mine tailings from the site were used as the Superior High School track until they were removed in an emergency cleanup by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2002.

“If it wasn’t toxic, man it’d be good stuff,” said Mineral County Planner and Sanitarian Tim Read.

Read said that his main concern with the process is the effect it could have on the town of Superior and Mineral County.

“I would like the EPA to step out of their mold and give us an inside look at what the effects of this listing could be,” Read said.

Opper pointed to the town of Libby as an example of a Superfund site in Montana. He said that while Libby did feel the effects of the listing, they have since become a booming town.

“You will take an initial hit. But it certainly hasn’t seemed to hurt the town of Libby which is more dangerous as far as health risks are concerned,” Opper said.

Superior Mayor Mike Wood said that the city would like to see its old well site up Flat Creek cleaned up. He said that the city still has a pending lawsuit to have it cleaned up but because of the tailings the town cannot use the well unless there is an emergency and if they do use it they have to issue a do-not-drink order to the town.

He added that if the well were repaired it would save the people of Superior money on their water bills as pumping water down from Flat Creek is relatively inexpensive.

Schultz said that he was concerned that the project was not needed and that it would be waste of time and money.

“If you want to clean up the world you’ve got a big task ahead of you,” Schultz said. “I don’t know of any study that has linked health problems here to tailings. This is not Libby, Montana.”

Opper said that one of the first things that will be done as part of listing the site will be to test areas and determine which sites need cleanup and which do not.

“We’re not going to insist that God cleans up the bedrock, it’d be hard to collect on any litigation there,” Opper said. “But we’d really like to get ahead of the curve on this and if there is a public health threat we’d like to take care of that.”

MDEQ representative Denise Martin said that there are studies that prove these metals can cause harm in other places and the testing would determine which sites needed immediate action.

Sandi Olson, a MDEQ representative, added that there are two steps to the process, removal and remediation. In removal there would be immediate disposal of tailings from hot spots that are considered the most dangerous and as the project progressed there would be remediation of the other sites in question.

“It is a very confusing mixed bag and hopefully through the assessment we’ll be able to better understand this,” Olson said about the many areas in Mineral County.

Martin said that the assessment of the area is a very low-impact process and people will be hard pressed to notice the small samples that will be collected to determine which areas are in need of mitigation.

Roger Wassley, who is involved in a water study that has taken similar core samples, said that he has not received any complaints about the core samples he has taken with the water study.

“I think that I’m speaking for most of the town council when I say that if we have an issue we want to clean it up,” said Wood.