"VALLEY
OF DEATH"
by
John Osborn, MD
"Valley
of Death" published in 1929-1930 was a courageous campaign
by a small town newspaper in north Idaho, the Coeur d'Alene
Press, waged to protect clean waters of the Spokane-Coeur
d'Alene watershed. Today, more than 60 years later, it is
worth remembering the desperate and prophetic work of those
Coeur d'Alene reporters and editors to stop the pollution.
During
the early 1900s, dumping of mining waste into the waters of
the Coeur d'Alene sparked opposition to the immensely
powerful Mine Operators Association (MOA). As the mining
waste flowed downstream onto the rich bottomlands of the
Coeur d'Alene River valley, farmers and ranchers saw their
children sicken, their livestock die, and their crops fail.
Farmers took the first real steps to stop the mining
companies from polluting the Spokane-Coeur d'Alene
watershed.
In
1904 sixty-five Kootenai County farmers filed two court
actions against the mining companies. During seven years of
litigation, the MOA hired "operatives" to infiltrate the
Coeur d'Alene's farming communities and gather information
on the farmers' strategies, farmers' income, and
opportunities to adjust claims and settle with willing
farmers. The farmers eventually "won" a case in 1910: they
were awarded one dollar by a jury in Moscow, Idaho.
Many
farmers sold or granted "pollution easements" to the mining
companies. Buying the right to pollute through "pollution
easements" became the policy of Coeur d'Alene mining
companies and persisted into the 1950s. By 1930 the U.S.
Bureau of Mines estimated that 11,515 acres of land had been
indentured through easements bought by mining companies for
the purpose of depositing tailings. Most were in Kootenai
County.
In
1917 Bunker Hill began a coal fired smelter, and began
purchasing "smoke easements" from ranchers in Shoshone
County, following the example of Anaconda Copper Company in
Montana. Smelter fumes contained lead and sulfur dioxide
which formed sulfuric acid when exposed to water. The smoke
damaged vegetation, killed trees, and allegedly killed
livestock. By 1931 a Bunker Hill engineer estimated that 300
pounds of lead went up the smoke stack daily. By 1940 "smoke
easements" on private land covered 6000 acres.
Advances
in mining and milling technology increased production and
profits, and also sometimes increased pollution. In 1912 the
mining companies began using "floatation," in which finely
ground material is mixed with water and a floatation
material. Minerals could then be extracted from the froth.
Production increased, and so did tailings, finer slimes, and
water pollution. By 1914 the Army Corp of Engineers reported
shoaling of the Coeur d'Alene river channel by tailings, and
also noted a milky material suspended in the water. Over the
years, river depths became shallow.
In
1919 mining companies rejected the option of "settlement"
basins to collect contaminated sediments. Jacob Polack,
owner of 320 acres near Cataldo, filed a lawsuit, charging
that river bed had been dramatically altered by tailings
deposits, which caused further flooding. Bunker Hill was
found responsible, and the court accepted the charge that
the mining companies should attempt to reduce the tailings
problem by constructing a series of tailings ponds. The
mining companies rejected this, but Judge Dietrich
countered, "it follows that the problem is one of financial
economy and not physical impossibility."
Mining
waste flowing down the Coeur d'Alene River and washing onto
the beaches of Lake Coeur d'Alene prompted growing concern
about the future of one of the world's most beautiful lakes
-- and the future of the region's clean water-dependent
recreation and tourist economies.
"Valley
of Death," was published in 1929-1930 against this historic
backdrop of massive mining pollution in an extremely
beautiful and biologically rich watershed. City editor John
Coe described the Coeur d'Alene River Valley: "A picture of
desolation. It is a veritable 'Valley of Death' in a
"Paradise Lost.'" Editor H.F. Kretchman, speaking to the
Izaak Walton League in 1930, warned that unless the dumping
was stopped, then Lake Coeur d'Alene would become a "replica
of the mother stream which now pours day by day its slimy
waters into this God-given settling tank."
The
Coeur d'Alene Press, pointing to successful settling ponds
used in British Columbia required under Canadian Law,
campaigned for the construction of settling ponds to save
the Coeur d'Alene River and Lake. The Coeur d'Alene Press's
campaign was embraced by the local Republican Party in the
election of 1930. Ultimately the mining companies quit
dumping -- in 1968, not 1930.
Today,
Speaker Foley and Rep. Larry LaRocco, who together represent
the people who live in the Spokane-Coeur d'Alene basin, have
publicly committed themselves to the massive undertaking of
cleaning-up and protecting this watershed. More than Foley
and LaRocco, cleaning-up the Spokane-Coeur d'Alene watershed
will require a major commitment from a nation and both
impacted states -- Washington and Idaho -- that for a
century benefitted from the richest silver mines on earth
and that now face a very unpleasant aftermath: one of the
worst cases of heavy metal pollution on earth.
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