Tuesday
Submitted by mpengilly on Tue, 2017-06-20 00:00
Hello again!
Today we are driving through the Silver Valley up to Burke Canyon with Rebecca Stevens, the Program Manager and Restoration Coordinator of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe Lake Management Department. We’ll tour three mine clean-up sites, the EPA Repository, and the Sunshine Mine Disaster Memorial. Our discussions for the day will focus on the history of mining in the region, its effects on the watershed, the Bunker Hill Superfund site, and the collaborative remediation work being done. You can find some information about basin-wide restoration at: www.restorationpartnership.org
If you are interested in learning a lot more about the lead contamination issue in the Silver Valley, I recommend the book “Leaded: the Poisoning of Idaho’s Silver Valley” by Michael Mix. It is fairly dry reading at times, but full of fascinating history and science.
On another note, we will talk about the historical importance of wildfire in our watershed. We’ll be hiking the Pulaski Tunnel Trail, based near Wallace, which leads to the Nicholson Mine site where Forest Service Ranger Ed Pulaski and fire crew took shelter during a wildfire in 1910. Look it up if you don’t know the story!
On our way back to Coeur d’Alene, we will stop at the Old Mission State Park to watch a video about the history of Cataldo Mission and the Coeur d’Alene Tribe at the Sacred Encounters Exhibit.
Here are some discussion guides for the day. Post your responses on the blog or as a video on flipgrid!
- In what ways has the lake shaped the people living around it? How have we changed the lake?
- What do you know about the Bunker Hill Superfund site?
- What are the ecosystem services in the Silver Valley? Have those changed over time or remained the same?
- What do you know about Ed Pulaski’s story and the “Big Burn” of 1910?
Marie
Comments
Coeur d'Alene Basin Contamination and Restoration
According to the USDA and USDI, 2016, the leaching of toxins from a nearby mine into the Coeur d’Alene River put both public health and the environment at risk. As a result, large restoration projects have taken place in order to reduce these hazards.
The USDA and USDI Restoration Plan points out that human uses of natural resources in the Coeur d’Alene Lake Basin were lost due to the contamination by the mine. In addition, local tribal cultural services became very limited. In response to these problems, the USDA and USDI have partnered in planning a restoration project. Easements on to private land have been ordered in order to assess damage to wetlands and affected species and also to begin management of those system-components (Restoration Partnership, 2013). By restoring such natural ecology and niches, human inhabitants of the area will also be positively affected. Mine pollution restoration projects typically take long periods of time to complete in order to ensure that clean-up is effective.
http://www.restorationpartnership.org
http://www.restorationpartnership.org/pdf/2013_AR_Download.pdf
I used to live in Butte,
I used to live in Butte, Montana where the decades of copper mining has left an indelible mark on the land and the people. The people of Butte proudly embrace their heritage from all aspects. The mining brought money and influence to the point that Butte boasted a population greater than New York City for a short time. When mining money slowed, things changed and the bust of the early 80's was very difficult. Butte went from the Richest Hill on Earth to a perpetually hazardous Superfund site that will never be completely remediated. Over time, however, significant improvements have been made to both environment and society such that the Ecosystem Services are now being marketed from a variety of basis including provisioning, regulating, supporting and cultural.
Butte's Berkeley Pit
There are actually two good things coming out of the Superfund site in Butte. The Berkeley Pit is a flooded open-pit mine there that is leaching metals into the local aquifer. However, by trying to solve these problems, they are learning a lot about waste-water clean up in general, and how to avoid future problems. Also, they are discovering strange microorganisms there, in the kingdom Archaea, that might be able to provide us with antibiotics or other useful products. These Archaea can only live in extreme conditions, such as the pollutants in the Berkeley Pit.
Idea for students about mining repository in the future
After visiting the mine reclamation sites, I have one question. What will we do with the waste materials in the repository in the future? This is a good question to pose to our students. They could possibly problem solve ways to get rid of this waste in the future. I teach a class about engineering and it is amazing how the students think of so many ways to solve problems. They are not afraid to try new ideas or see try something completely out of the box. Just a thought…
Yes!
What a great question for your students, Kim! I completely agree that kids can come up with surprising and creative solutions we would never think of! And since people will continue to mine for metals, there will continue to be waste that we'll need to deal with. I'd love to know what high school students think we could do with that waste!
Mining
The subject of mining and its lasting effects on the ecosystem is fascinating to me. I have recently moved to the Salmon-Challis area, where the history of mining is everywhere. There are old mining ghost towns, there are numerous abandoned mines, and there are tailings in so many draws. Almost every hike I’ve been on around this area I’ve stumbled upon something left over from mining. Also, there is one active mine left, mining cobalt. The thing I’ve been the most stricken by is how drastically the landscape has been altered in places from mining, and have not recovered. There is a place on the Salmon River that is now called Dead Water Hole, which was caused by a massive mining blow out that filed in a canyon and completely diverted the river. Also, along Hughes Creek, there is a few miles of tailings, tall piles and piles of rocks that have no vegetation growth. Then there is Leesburg, a ghost town and a whole canyon full of tailings; possibly 15 miles worth. I understand that mining is a lively hood for many people, and the products from mining are useful to consumers. I also am under the impression that mining practices now do not leave such a scar on the land. It is just unfortunate that people did not realize that in the past, before so much damage was done.
Image Examples
After writing about the mining tailings around the Salmon/Challis area last night, I decided to take some pictures of what I've seen for examples. This is just off of one of the Forest Service roads, where a creek was mined in 1890. This was called the "Hughes Creek Placer.” They were mining for gold. Isn't it surprising that mining from that long ago still shows its effects so starkly today? I am curious about how this has affected the fish. Hughes Creek runs into the North Fork of the Salmon River, which eventually runs into the Snake River, which runs into the Columbia. Would mining like this carry its effects down river, maybe even to the Columbia?