Benefits Of Mining in North Idaho!!

[Ithaca 37]

How about telling me some more about how great mining is! You think this is only affecting swans?

"100 swans die in Coeur d’Alene wetlands

Biologists said the swans may have been victims of lead in the toxic mine sediments washing into the wetlands from the Silver Valley. Lead levels throughout the Chain Lakes and the marshes between Cataldo and Harrison often are fatal to many species of birds. Hundreds of birds died there from 1992 to 1997.

Swans are among the most sensitive because they feed in the sediment. When they ingest too much lead, their digestive system shuts down.

“They continue to feed, but they are starving to death,” said Dan"

http://www.idahostatesman.com/News/Idaho/story.asp?ID=37472

<FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1">[ 04-14-2003 08:02: Message edited by: Ithaca 37 ]</font>

 

[JoseCuervo]

Ithica,

Do the fish get the lead? I know they were trying a commercial fishery up there, I think for Lake Trout, in an effort to reduce the competition for one of the endangered species. That would be ironic if the commercial fish have lead.

I know that Owyhee Resivoir, and Brownlee have high levels of Mercury from the mining, to such an extent that F&G issues warnings about kids and pregnant women eating too much of the fish from those bodies of water.

er

 

[Ithaca 37]

Elkgunner, I'm sorry not to be able to answer your question. I hope Ten Bears will show up. He's our expert on N. Idaho mining.

 

[Ten Bears]

The commercial fishery is in the Pend O'Reille Lake system. There are some mining wastes there from the Clark Fork, but I don't know the extent of them.

IT, that stuff is old news, and the "flare ups" from the waste have two causes; 1. the EPA cleanup process exposed and flushed more heavy metals down the system then any recent floods had, and 2. two large flood events occurred when the EPA had opened up these deposits.

You may or may not be aware, but there are more metals "locked" into the sediments that can not be feasibly removed without causing uncontrolable releases (wonder when they figured that out?). Are you aware that the levels of lead, zinc,and arcenic are above the safe water levels in many streams in this area, and thats without mining activity? It's called elemental levels.

How many of these birds had lead shot in them? Last year the IF&G took the gizzards from some ducks I shot to test them for eating lead shot. I'm told that the amount of lead shot in these lakes is tremendous, and that birds are still picking it up as well as the mining waste.

Does that clear anything up?

 

[Ithaca 37]

Nope.

 

[JoseCuervo]

TenBears,
Thanks for the post, and I get the lakes up North confused..

I admidt I am not the most educated person on mining issues, and I just seem to have been around the ones that are bad sites (Stibnite, Delamar, Yankee Fork, etc..) Are there examples of relatively good mines, from a "damage to the environment" point of view? Or is a good mine, one that keeps the problems with in the property boundry, and just doesn't let it get downsteam??

Thanks for the education in advance.

er

 

[Ten Bears]

Good mines are the ones that don't have a hundred years of waste to deal with. The problem is that today we still don't have a way to deal with the waste materials we created 100 years ago. This area is ladden with heavy metals. Thats what made it a mining district in the first place, and when you add to that the dumping of lead and zinc (gold and silver were the initial markets), you only commpound the problem. The lakes that IT so proudly proclaims as "polluted" are shallow lakes, and waterfowl easily reach the bottoms and still ingest lead shot from the days when it was legal to hunt waterfowl with.

The problem aint all mining, and IT finds that hard to swallow sometimes when he can't blame everything on extraction industries.

 

[Ithaca 37]

Let's blame the problem on the shallow lakes!!!

 

[Oak]

Here's another one that kinda fits in this topic:

EPA formalizes decision to remove Milltown Dam

"Ninety-seven years after copper king William Clark blocked the confluence of the Blackfoot and Clark Fork rivers with a timber-crib dam, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday called for the removal of Milltown Dam and with it, millions of cubic yards of polluted reservoir sediments.


"The $95 million Superfund cleanup would rid Milltown’s drinking-water aquifer of arsenic, eliminate the periodic release of fish-killing pulses of copper from the reservoir, remove the threat of dam failure, and restore a native trout migration route and free-flowing river confluence...

"As proposed by EPA and endorsed by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, the cleanup would remove the most heavily contaminated sediments from Milltown Reservoir – about 2.6 million cubic yards of mine and smelter wastes carried down the Clark Fork River over the past century."

Full Story Here

Oak

 

[1_pointer]

Couldn't have been the extraction industry that caused that, it was the pollution from a volcano that erupted 100,000 years ago. Rush said so.

 

[ELKCHSR]

HEEEE DIIID!!!
I would find that one a little hard to swallow Tyler....I would almost bet your just making it up for a jab!!!

 

[1_pointer]

I wouldn't do that.

 

[Ten Bears]

Sounds good, but I wonder how their going to keep the metals from leaching into the soils at the new dump site?

IT, your just upset that the issue isn't as "clear cut" as you'd like.

 

[Ithaca 37]

Ten, Not at all. I agree with you that the problem is those darn shallow lakes!

I wish somebody had pointed that out a long time ago!

 

[ELKCHSR]

Well!!! To late now what?

 

[Ten Bears]

IT, you truly don't know what shallow lakes have to do with increased ingestion of lead shot in ducks, geese, and swans? What a waste.

 

[Ithaca 37]

Ten, Yes, I understand completely. It makes perfect sense. If we didn't have those damn shallow lakes we wouldn't have any problem with toxic waste killing the swans.

I went back and read the article in the first post:

"About 100 tundra swans died at Coeur d´Alene River wetlands during their migration last month.
Biologists said the swans may have been victims of lead in the toxic mine sediments washing into the wetlands from the Silver Valley. Lead levels throughout the Chain Lakes and the marshes between Cataldo and Harrison often are fatal to many species of birds. Hundreds of birds died there from 1992 to 1997."

It sounds like the biologists aren't aware that the problem is lead shot from duck hunters! Maybe you'd better enlighten them!

They probably haven't figured out the shallow lake angle either!

I'm sure they'll appreciate hearing from you.

I'm going to contact F&G and tell them the real problem is water! If we didn't have all that damn water up there the swans wouldn't land and then they wouldn't get poisoned!

I bet they never thought of that, either!

<FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1">[ 04-18-2003 23:04: Message edited by: Ithaca 37 ]</font>

 

[ELKCHSR]

If this is a big problem, then maybe we should drain the lakes like they did in the old times and turn them into pasture land!!!
Works for me....

 

[Ten Bears]

ELKCHSR, those lakes were pasture land prior to the dam at Post Falls.

If IT wanted to really know what the problem was, he'd spend more time listening, and a little less time ranting.

The f&g has been collecting gizzards from birds for years to study lead shot problems. The f&g already knows there's a problem there.

The EPA started "cleaning up" the area in the early 1990's, and stirred up the largest heavy metal releases into the river system on record. They had help from 2 big floods.

Did you know that the EPA is immune to the toxic discharge standards that everyone else has to follow (TMDL's)? True.
They can pollute as much as they want under the premise that they are "cleaning up".

1992 - 1997 seems to be the peak of "clean up" time, also the 200 year level flood.

BTW we all know that swan would live forever if it weren't for the mining industry, right?

FYI, I have been told that swans and other waterbirds get their grit and gravel from the sediments in shallow waters (lakes). That and they eat bugs from the mud.

We have all these metals in the area, and no way to "safely" remove the without stirring up the system any more then it already has. The EPA learnedthat when "they" killed hundreds of swans in the 90's during the "clen up".

 

[Ithaca 37]

Ten, It sounds like your solution is to do nothing. As usual.