EPA Hands Off Authority to the State for Milltown Superfund Restoration

May 24, 2010

On the long path to river restoration at Milltown, another milestone was passed this spring when the Environmental Protection Agency handed off authority for the Superfund site to the state's Natural Resource Damage Program, officially marking the shift from remediation to restoration.

The Milltown effort remediation work - the removal of the dam and more than three million tons of contaminated sediment - began in 2006 and is now largely completed, except for the backfilling of the Clark Fork bypass channel, which will likely happen next year.

For more on the transition, see  the EPA news release. For an overview of the remediation work, check out the Dam News from 2007 and 2008 and for more on the restoration project, see the Dam News 2010.

Clark Fork River Design Review Team Set to Begin

May 24, 2010

The inaugural meeting of the Clark Fork River Design Review Team will be held June 10, from 2-4 p.m. at the Pen Convention Center in Deer Lodge. The meeting is open to the public.

Coordinated by the Montana Dept. of Environmental Quality, the newly created team will meet two to four times a year throughout the duration of the river remediation and restoration. As the designated cleanup lead, the DEQ has asked the team to:

• Review cleanup designs for technical adequacy
• Coordinate designs and activities among agencies
• Inform the public and interested parties about the cleanup design details

The team will include representatives from EPA, NRDP, Powell and Anaconda-Deer Lodge Counties, MT Fish, Wildlife and Parks, US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Grant Kohrs Ranch and CFRTAC.

In advance of the initial meeting, the DEQ will provide the team with the rationale, drawings and specifications for the Trestle Area cleanup in Deer Lodge. DEQ staff will present the project for discussion at the June 10 meeting. Team participants will then have one to two weeks to make comments, which may be incorporated into the final designs.

In March, CFRTAC convened a work session with agencies that focused on clean up planning for 2010. At that meeting, a suggestion was made that Clark Fork River Design Review Team be modeled on a similar effort used at the Milltown Reservoir Sediments cleanup, which was helpful in working through design issues, ensuring integration with restoration and redevelopment, and giving the public more involvement in the process. CFRTAC serves as a public interest representative on both Design Review Teams.

Summer Cleanup and a Design Review Team for the Clark Fork River

March 15, 2010

A design review team soon will be established to offer stakeholders and the public an opportunity to weigh in on the Upper Clark Fork River Superfund cleanup, which state officials say will begin in Deer Lodge this summer.

That was one of the outcomes of a recent meeting with agencies and public stakeholders to discuss the progress of the river cleanup. On Feb. 23 a CFRTAC meeting in Helena convened the Environmental Protection Agency, the Montana Dept. of Environmental Quality and the Montana Natural Resource Damage Program, agency consultants, the Opportunity Citizens Protection Association, the Clark Fork Coalition, and several CFRTAC board members.

The meeting had been organized because state agencies and the EPA seemed to be at an impasse over a debate on project design issues. CFRTAC board president Kathy Hadley, who, with her husband Wayne, owns a small ranch along the Clark Fork, expressed frustration with the inaction along the Clark Fork. She encouraged them to listen to the science and move forward, move forward quickly. "The governor and president talk about green jobs - we've got a $100 million in the bank. Let's get going," she said.

But first the state agencies and the EPA must resolve some key differences of opinion on the cleanups' design and data collection issues. The state is designated the cleanup's lead but the EPA plays an oversight role. At issue is whether the EPA's Riparian Evaluation System (RipES) is the be-all and end-all for the design, as determined by the Clark Fork's 2004 Record of Decision, or whether it's one tool of several in designing river cleanups.

RipES was collaboratively developed by the EPA and its consultants from industry and academia and is under consideration for use by other EPA region on mine waste cleanups. In 2006-07, the EPA and its contractors used RipES to assess the first 46 miles of the Clark Fork's floodplain and 116 streambank miles. The system divides the site into polygons and looks at the stability of streambanks, the extent of exposed tailings, known as slickens, and also the area of impacted and slightly impacted soils and vegetation. RipES is also a tool for identifying field data gaps needed for individual cleanup designs.

Subsequent sampling by the state in 2009, the DEQ has found contamination more widespread than predicted under RipES, particularly in the depth of the contamination. In the uppermost 3.5 miles of river, 250 test pits were dug, revealing contamination more than six feet deep in some places.

The difference between the EPA and the DEQ's sampling is important: How the agencies test will determines what it will find, and consequently how much it will remove. But there isn't enough funding to remove all the contamination from the floodplain, which even if there were, it could possibly jeopardize the serpentine river's channel stability.

The DEQ will continue to sample through 2010, but in the meantime it has also developed a design for the start of the cleanup in Deer Lodge at the Trestle, a railroad crossing over the Clark Fork River in the community that sees a lot of foot traffic. The DEQ and EPA are discussing the design and have differences over the amount to be removed and protection structures such as log cribs. "There are still a lot of factors in this design that need to be worked out," said the DEQ's Brian Bartkowiak.

"We're working through those issues right now," said EPA's Montana Superfund program manager Joe Vranka. "Our goal is the same as yours, to get some construction, to get some things implemented."

DEQ Director Richard Opper said starting the cleanup is a "huge priority" for both the EPA and DEQ. "We both recognize it's an unbelievable opportunity and want to make sure it's done right." Where feasible, he said, the agencies should err on the side of more tailings removal rather than less.

Both the state and EPA say they will resolve their differences over cleanup designs in time to have a work plan for the Trestle area in Deer Lodge, which will be implemented by late summer or early fall. "If we (the DEQ and EPA) don't' work it out, we will have failed," Opper said.

Other agency commitments that came out of that meeting:

• Soft engineering of stream banks will be preferred over harder approaches, such as rip-rap;
• Reach A, the very headwaters of the Clark Fork, will be cleaned up in 2011;
• A public meeting on the cleanup will be held in the spring or summer.

In discussing cleanup designs, the agency officials were asked if there was an opportunity for public involvement. Chris Brick, science director for the Clark Fork Coalition (and a Milltown technical advisor to CFRTAC), suggested a design review team, saying part of Milltown's success thus far has been because of the design review team. And the river, compared to Milltown or even Silver Bow Creek, is a much more difficult cleanup.

Since 2005, CFRTAC has been part of the Milltown Design Review Team (DRT), a process which has allowed the public a role in the design of cleanup. The Milltown team includes representatives from the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, the DEQ, NRDP, Fish, Wildlife and Parks, the Fish and Wildlife Service, Missoula County and CFRTAC, the latter two representing the public interest. The Milltown DRT offered comments on technical aspects of the cleanup and helped ensure integration with restoration and even redevelopment goals. The DRT meetings and monthly tours also provided CFRTAC and Missoula County opportunities to share information with the public.

Agency officials, from the DEQ, NRDP and EPA, agreed to the idea and said the DEQ will propose the workings later this spring. Visit cfrtac.org for details as they emerge.

DalSoglio has worked in the Helena office for 20 years and replaces John Wardell, who died in a climbing accident last summer. “He was a wonderful mentor and very supportive of me for a lot of years,” DalSoglio told the IR. “He was very good at giving people opportunities. He trained me so well for so many things that I didn’t have to walk into this job cold. I knew the issues and the players.”

DalSoglio spent a decade working on Superfund issues and was a project manager for the Milltown site in the early 1990s. With a background in public administration and political science, she's a bit different than most EPA staff, with education in the sciences or engineering.  “My degrees involve how citizens and governments make decisions, how people come together to make policy decisions,” DalSoglio said.

Read the article here.

First have a look at this article on the state of the Clark Fork's fishery, which, according to the report, is settling into a healthy state.

Next is an article on Gov. Schweitzer's effort to get the city of Helena to propose a way fund a new historical museum lest it be moved, possibly with $40 million of Natural Resource Damage Program funds, to Butte. Here's a reaction to that idea in an op-ed by Chris Brick of the Clark Fork Coalition.

Here's an article on an update the state gave the Missoula County Commissioners concerning the removal of the Stimson Mill's cooling pond, which is contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. While not a part of the Milltown Superfund project, the Stimson cleanup is neighboring and does affect the Blackfoot River restoration effort. A public meeting will be held March 16 in Bonner at 7 p.m. to discuss the proposal. Read more here.

Superfund cleanups in the upper Clark Fork River Basin were a substantial focus of the 6^th Clark Fork Symposium held last week at the University of Montana.

The two-day event, held every five years since 1985, kicked off with a state of the Clark Fork River by UM professor Vicki Watson. Dr. Watson offered an overview of current conditions, trends, challenges and actions. The river is showing some encouraging signs of recovery, such as a 2009 sampling of macroinvertebrates ( e.g. aquatic insects like stoneflies) that showed the stream, with 10 years of cleanup and restoration work behind it, moved from a severely impaired to moderately impaired category. Still plenty of challenges remain aside from the cleanup. Among them are climate change and population growth, both of which place demands on the river's water. Some 87 miles of the upper Clark Fork are considered chronically dewatered.

Dr. Watson nonetheless found encouragement in the amount of resources dedicated to restoring the Clark Fork River. The EPA and NRDP (and BP-ARCO) alone account for more than billion dollars in funding for the river. Numerous other agencies are involved as well. And, she pointed out, it's a long term commitment. "Watershed keeping is like housekeeping, it's never over."

Joel Chavez from the Montana DEQ talked about the ongoing cleanup and restoration work on more than 21 miles of Silver Bow Creek. That effort, led by the state with EPA oversight, began in 1999 involves removing and shipping more than four million tons of floodplain contamination to BP-ARCO's repository. The agency is also building a new stream, one that will be allowed to move naturally across the floodplain. It's an example of integrated remediation and restoration, and one that's come in under budget. (An estimated $30 to $50 million will be returned to the NRDP and spent elsewhere.)

The upper reaches of Silver Bow Creek, now a decade into recovery, look like a stream on the mend. The creek has seen the return of some early pioneer trout, including a 13-inch cutthroat. Wildlife, from bears to bighorns, and some 70 bird species have made use of the restored sections of the stream. Chavez said the work and the recovery will be monitored for at least 20 years. "It doesn't take very long to make a big mess but it takes a long time and a lot of money to clean it up," he said.

On the Clark Fork River, Chavez said the cleanup is "a little bit different" given that many of the sites are private, productive ag land. Early success will help convince landowners about the cleanup. Fortunately, the cleanup will largely start on the uppermost reach of the Clark Fork on land owned by BP-ARCO. "The first one you do has to be the best."

Once in full swing, Chavez said there will be two to three major construction projects ongoing along the river per year.

Carol Fox of the NRDP gave an overview of the state's lawsuits against ARCO that created the fund and highlighted the cooperation among agencies, calling it an "intricate spider web." The program has seen success in the upper river, particularly the Milltown and Silver Bow Creek projects.

Pat Saffel, fisheries biologist with the FWP, said the agency's vision for the Clark Fork is "an ecologically restored river that is a source of enjoyment for the people, economic growth and pride." The agency is working the NRDP to prioritize projects and have done fishery and habitat assessments on 120 upper Clark Fork tributaries. Priorities for projects will be to restore the mainstem, improve the tribs, and enhance native fisheries.

Butte legislator Jon Sesso recounted the history of the five square mile Butte Superfund site. Focused on soil and water, goals in Butte are to eliminate human contact with contaminants for residents, to remove or cap contaminated soils and to control contaminated runoff. Sesso described numerous cleanup efforts throughout the city, in places such as East Butte, Timber Butte and Missoula Gulch over the last two decades. And some sites have been redeveloped with energy-efficient affordable housing, ball parks and trails.

And for lessons learned about 25 years of Butte Superfund effort, Sesso turned to the Laws of Ecology from famed biologist Barry Commoner:

• Everything is connected to everything else.
• Everything must go somewhere.
• Nature knows best.
• There's no such thing as a free lunch.

For additional coverage, see the Montana Kaimin and the Missoulian.

A new website explores the  role of public participation in shaping the Record of Decision (i.e. remedy or clean-up) for Superfund sites in the upper Clark Fork River Basin.

The website, Science, Society & Superfund: A Social History of America's Largest Superfund Site, is an outgrowth of a National Science Foundation-funded study led by Montana Tech professor and CFRTAC volunteer Pat Munday. Though specifically a comparative study of several sites in the Upper Clark Fork River Basin of western Montana -- including Butte, Anaconda, Silver Bow Creek, the Clark Fork River, and Milltown Dam -- the results study is of general interest to anyone that wonders how grassroots citizens' groups can effectively influence Superfund clean-up decisions.

The site features numerous presentations on the upper Clark Fork, archival files of agency documents and press coverage summaries from the 1980s and 90s.

"Clearly, if funds are available (from natural resource damage money), and the people of Butte would like to spend it that way, clearly it seems like a win-win situation, and construction could begin soon," Gov. Schweitzer told the Montana Standard last week.

Under NRDP rules, the governor makes the final call on spending NRDP funds.

Reaction to the proposal, however, has been mixed. Check out articles and editorial in the Helena Independent Record and a column from the Missoula Independent.

In a press release, the DEQ says it and the Montana Department of Justice (DOJ) have agreed to settle a state lawsuit against Stimson Lumber Company as part of a proposed Administrative Order on Consent between the state agencies and the company. The proposed Order requires the company to remove a cooling pond and a large berm built out into the Blackfoot River at Stimson's former lumber mill in Bonner, Montana. The berm and pond were built in the mid-1900s of timber cribs and soil placed in the river. The DEQ discovered polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and petroleum contamination in the cooling pond and portions of the berm in 2006.

The Stimson cleanup, while proximate to the Milltown Superfund site, is unrelated to the effort.

Read the DEQ press release here and have a look at the proposed order and work plan are here.

In addition, copies of the documents are available at the Missoula City-County Library, the Mansfield Library at U of M, the Bonner School Library, and DEQ's Remediation Division Offices at 1100 North Last Chance Gulch in Helena. Information can also be obtained by calling 1-800-246-8198.

Written comments may either be e-mailed to klarge@mt.gov or mailed to Keith Large, Project Officer, DEQ, P.O. Box 200901, Helena, MT, 59620-0901. To be considered, comments must be received by March 31, 2010. The DEQ, DOJ and EPA will make a final decision on the proposed Order after considering all written comments received during the comment period. Under the proposed Work Plan, cleanup would occur between September and November 2010.

"We are starting the eleventh year of the grant program aimed at returning the Basin to a healthy ecosystem," said Kathleen Coleman, Program Specialist for the Natural Resource Damage Program . "This year, $7.5 million is available to fund grant projects approved by the governor."

Grant applications for over $25,000 must be received by Friday, April 9, 2010. Grant applications for $25,000 or less may be submitted on a continuous basis throughout the year. Applicants requesting more than $25,000 must use a long-form application, and there is a short-form application for applicants requesting $25,000 or less.

Government agencies, private entities and individuals may apply for grant funds for projects that will restore or replace the natural resources in the Basin. Grant funds may also be used for developing future grant proposals or for conducting monitoring, research and education activities related to restoration of natural resources in the basin. Only projects that would be located in the Upper Clark Fork River Basin are eligible for funding, subject to limited exceptions.

Applications and guidance materials are available through the Natural Resource Damage Program at (406) 444-0205 or electronically on the Department of Justice website.

The NRDP will not hold a workshop this year, but staff is available to assist grant applicants upon request. Call the NRDP office at 444-0205 for further information.

Once the applications are received, the NRDP will consult with various government agencies and the Upper Clark Fork River Basin Advisory Council to prepare draft funding recommendations. These recommendations will then be considered by the Trustee Restoration Council, which consists of the governor's chief of staff, directors of the state's three natural resource agencies, the attorney general and the chairman of the advisory council. After a public comment period, the Advisory Council and Trustee Restoration Council will make recommendations to the governor, who is expected to make final funding decisions on proposals over $25,000 in December 2010. The Trustee Restoration Council makes final funding decisions on proposals of $25,000 or less.

The restoration projects are funded with interest generated from the $130 million Restoration Fund established by the state in 1999 from settlement of several portions of its lawsuit against ARCO. The suit sought compensation for injuries to the natural resources in the Upper Clark Fork River Basin caused by decades of mining and smelting in the Butte and Anaconda areas by ARCO and its predecessors. To date, about $68 million has been awarded to 90 grant projects that will improve the Basin's fish and wildlife habitat and populations, public recreation opportunities, and public drinking water supplies.