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We wish to thank you for your public statements that the proposed NAS study will not delay the Superfund cleanup of mining wastes in the 1,500-square-mile Coeur d'Alene Basin. As you know, Washington State is especially vulnerable to decisions made upstream in Idaho, the source of ongoing contamination of the Spokane River. Our organizations fear that a rider to HR 5605, House Appropriations for the Veteran's Administration, Housing and Urban Development and Independent Agencies asking for a National Academy of Science (NAS) review of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) studies will, indeed, delay cleanup work. After the NAS language was made public, the Spokesman-Review reported: Silver Valley leaders immediately called for delays in EPA's $359 million cleanup plan while the National Academy of Sciences reviews the agency's work. The NAS study is redundant in its focus on studies that already clearly show health and environmental effects in the basin, and has the potential to slow down the cleanup process. Because of the number of studies that have already been conducted, we believe the study is scientifically unnecessary and a waste of tax dollars. We urge you to either prevent the NAS study, or include language to the provision stating that cleanup will not be delayed. In October of 2002, you went on record stating the cleanup will not be delayed. In order to confirm these public statements in public poliby, and to protect the future of the Spokane River and your constituents, we ask that you add language to the rider stating there will be no delay in cleanup work within the 1,500 square mile area. The Spokane River needs your help. As you know, for more than one hundred years mining companies in North Idaho created 120 million tons of wastes, including 62 million tons dumped directly into the South Fork of the Coeur d'Alene River. Like an Exxon Valdez in slow motion, this mining waste is flowing down the Coeur d'Alene River across Lake Coeur d'Alene and on to the beaches of the Spokane River. Floods aggravated by the severely overcut Coeur d'Alene National Forest carry most of the pollution: in a single day of the 1996 flood, over 1 million pounds of lead flowed into Lake Coeur d'Alene. The lake, an inefficient tailings pond, disgorged the pollution to Washington State. In September, after years of studies, preparation, and months of delays, the EPA issued a ROD to remediate the mining wastes in the Spokane River watershed in both Idaho and Washington. To remove any suspicions that the NAS study is a device to further delay the cleanup, we ask you to take a leadership role in protecting the interests of the Spokane community and memorialize in the appropriations language for the NAS study that the study will not delay the cleanup.
Sincerely,
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