Regulation envisioned to help protect public health from legacy of mining - Helena Independent Record

Federal funds will allow Lewis and Clark County to begin work on groundwater and possibly soil regulations for a roughly 40-square-mile area in the Upper Tenmile Creek Mining Area Superfund Site.

Future regulation is envisioned to mirror those regulating groundwater use and soils in East Helena where a Superfund site also exists, said Kathy Moore, environmental division administrator with the county’s health department, Lewis and Clark Public Health.

But regulation won’t come quickly, she said and explained a timetable with opportunities for public comment that could, at its quickest, produce rules on soils by the end of 2017.

Regulation on soils could address what happens to the dirt that’s excavated for new homes and ensure that contaminated dirt isn’t sold as topsoil and moved from the property.

While regulation on contaminated soils in East Helena wasn’t disputed because of health concerns, it’s uncertain if the same conditions exist in the Upper Tenmile Creek area of concern.

Fewer people live in this area, Moore said and noted that, also unlike East Helena, there’s less exposure to potentially contaminated soil.

“I’m not ruling it out,” she said of the need for soil regulations. “I don’t make the final decision. The (county) Board of Health does.

“I think it’s worth discussing an alternative however,” she added.

Regulation for new wells that are drilled to supply residences with water, primarily in an area that includes Rimini and extends southward where people live year-round, is less questionable.

The process to put in place rules for new wells is envisioned to take longer and may not happen until fall of 2018, she suggested of a possible timeline.

The Environmental Protection Agency website estimated there are 150 active and abandoned mines in the 53-square-mile Rimini Mining District.

The federal agency is providing $71,638 toward the creation of regulations -- they’re called institutional controls.

“Institutional controls are a series of interventions that are intended to protect people from any contamination that’s left in place,” Moore said.

She explained them as “an assurance a neighbor can’t do something that exposes others to contaminants.”

Without the creation of these controls, EPA can’t close out its involvement and allow responsibility to eventually shift to the local government, Moore said.

Groundwater control regulations are to be created by June 30, 2019, as is a community educational effort and the availability of blood screenings.

Environmental assessments of homes in the Upper Tenmile Creek Superfund site area could also be conducted for homeowners, as they are in the East Helena site, Moore noted.

The dust that has been carried into homes for decades by the gravel road there -- 6.25 miles of it is being paved -- and from dirt on clothing can leave homes, particularly furniture, contaminated, Moore said.

The Superfund site in the Upper Tenmile Creek area is west of Helena in the mountainous country that rises toward the 6,320-foot MacDonald Pass.

Mining for gold, lead, copper and zinc there began in the 1870s and continued through the 1930s, according to the EPA website. Waste rock containing heavy metals was used as filler material for roads, yards and local waterways. The waste rock contaminated the soil and groundwater with heavy metals.

The East Helena environmental problems stem from the lead smelter that operated there from 1888 until 2001, according to the EPA website.

For more than 100 years, lead and zinc smelting operations deposited heavy metals, arsenic and other hazardous chemicals into the soil, surface water and groundwater of the Helena Valley. In addition to affecting the town, residential subdivisions and agricultural lands were also impacted, according to the EPA.

The sources of this contamination included the smelter stack, fugitive emissions from plant operations, process ponds and direct surface water discharges.

Regulations for the East Helena site address both groundwater, where plumes of contaminants have been clearly identified, and soil.

Efforts to clean up East Helena soils is nearing its completion although ditches and borrow pits where soil was removed for highway construction, Moore said.

She predicted that the soil cleanup work, other than at the smelter site, would be completed by the end of next year.

While regulation for the Rimini area would model those rules for East Helena, the two areas are quite different.

Groundwater contamination in the Upper Tenmile Creek area as a result of mining is “hit or miss,” Moore said.

“Some of the water has barely any trace of these contaminants. Some of it is highly contaminated. And some of it is pristine.”

“Our lack of knowledge is the biggest driving factor why we need this groundwater control area,” Moore said.

A permit and testing requirement for new wells could add $500 to the cost of a new well, she noted.

But before regulations are put into place, there would be public meetings on proposed rules and then additional opportunities for comment, Moore said.

An initial public meeting on proposed regulations could occur in late spring 2017 and include a public comment period.

Moore mentioned both a 30-day period, which commonly occurs when the county commission is prepared to act on issues of public interest such as conservation easements, and the possibility of a 60-day period.

Those proposed regulations would be refined based on public comments before one or two more public meetings are held, she continued, and added that these meetings could occur in late summer 2017.

Based on the outcome of those meetings, an application for the creation of a groundwater control district could be made to the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation in the fall of the year.

The state department’s review could take a year, she noted.

Existing wells, generally those in Rimini and in the Landmark subdivision near Hwy 12, have already been tested by EPA. Annual testing of these existing wells could be required on an annual basis to detect future contamination from mining wastes.