Cost of repairing mining’s damage to the West? $2.5 billion By PAUL KOBERSTEIN Last December, the U.S. Forest Service approved an exploratory permit for a controversial new hard rock mine adjacent to and underneath the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness of western Montana. Rock Creek Mine would be dug deep below the Wilderness Area, one of the …
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Idaho’s Sore Thumb By PAUL KOBERSTEIN COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho — It’s a fact of history that Congress once voted to sever Northern Idaho from the rest of the state and attach it to Washington, but President Grover Cleveland thought it was a bad idea and pocket-vetoed the law in 1887. The northern part of the state …
Jailed activist claims mining industry retaliation By PAUL KOBERSTEIN WALLACE, Idaho — Barbara Miller wore prison green as she spoke from inside the Shoshone County Jail. “I’m a political prisoner of the state of Idaho,” she said defiantly. “I was put here by the good old boys and the mining industry in Shoshone County.” Miller, …
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The Union Pacific’s Toxic Railroad By PAUL KOBERSTEIN HARRISON, Idaho — To get an idea of the kind of cleanup the Environmental Protection Agency has in mind for the Coeur d’Alene Basin, consider its Superfund response to poisons within a critical sliver of land running through the guts of the basin: the 72-mile rail branch from …
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Northern Idaho’s mining waste is now a problem for the Columbia River Basin By PAUL KOBERSTEIN HARRISON, Idaho — Over the last century, the Coeur d’Alene-Spokane River system has washed hundreds of millions of tons of mining waste along riverbottoms, floodplains, lakes and wetlands. Much of this waste contains toxic amounts of lead, cadmium, arsenic and …
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There is no safe level of lead in the human body By PAUL KOBERSTEIN No one would benefit from a cleanup in the Coeur d’Alene-Spokane Basin more than children, especially the smallest ones. Many residential yards throughout the upper reaches of the basin are still contaminated with high, unhealthy levels of lead dust. Soils on …
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Wallace schools censored lead health information from student handbook By PAUL KOBERSTEIN WALLACE, Idaho In 1999, the Wallace School District briefly considered the idea of warning students about lead hazards on school playgrounds. The school board decided not to insert a warning into the student handbook, despite a plea from the district superintendent, Nancy J. …
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