Butte-Silver Bow health director to request EPA work on West Side Soils, health risks

Sept. 30--The head of Butte's health department plans to take action on the fact that, despite a 34-year presence in Butte, the Environmental Protection Agency has not begun the initial work on -- and is unaware of the human health impacts from -- a vaguely defined area known as West Side Soils.

Though ill-defined, West Side Soils appears to largely encompass the Flat as well as the area west of Uptown. That area contains many residences as well as hundreds of abandoned mine sites and old mine dumps.

Butte-Silver Bow Health Officer Karen Sullivan said Friday that after reading EPA's internal report, produced last week by the Office of Inspector General, on the inadequate staffing to Superfund sites, she plans to formally request EPA assign a project manager to West Side Soils and get started on understanding the area's environmental damage and its impact to residents.

"I am stunned we don't know the reality of that particular site (West Side Soils). From a human health perspective, I'm very, very upset about it," Sullivan said Friday.

The fact that EPA has failed to ensure residents' safety by beginning the initial work on the site leaves Sullivan with the same impression many in Butte repeatedly say they feel -- that as far as EPA is concerned, Butte is an afterthought.

But EPA has stated in the past that Butte is a priority.

"EPA cannot figure out how to apportion full-time employees to Superfund areas," Sullivan said. "We can put men on the moon, right?"

The internal report cited Butte, saying that because West Side Soils -- one section of the approximately 30-mile-long Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund complex -- has never been investigated by EPA, EPA does not know the potential for human health impacts. The contaminants of concern include arsenic and lead.

Arsenic is a known carcinogen. Lead causes irreversible developmental delays in children.

In order to begin the work, EPA would need to investigate the large swath of land -- which in the Flat is heavily populated -- determine how bad the environmental damage is, and name the responsible party or parties.

Joe Griffin, a retired state project manager for Butte, said the responsible party is not necessarily Atlantic Richfield Company, who is the primary responsible party for the rest of the larger Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area site as well as for Anaconda's more than 300-square-mile Superfund site west of Butte.

Sullivan says she has already reached out to the state's public health department to try to coordinate a county-state partnership in making the formal request to EPA.

EPA spokesperson Lisa McClain-Vanderpool responded Friday saying the agency has not yet received a formal request. She added that the agency cannot comment on something EPA has not yet received.

The state health department's spokesperson Jon Ebelt called the news that EPA doesn't know the human health impacts due to contamination in West Side Soils "an unfortunate situation, and it needs to be addressed."

"The Department of Public Health and Human Services is aware that Montana Department of Environmental Quality has urged EPA to begin the formal Superfund process on West Side Soils to fully evaluate the human health risks. DEQ is the lead agency for the state on Superfund and DPHHS will work through DEQ to support these efforts," Ebelt said Friday via email.

President Donald Trump has proposed cutting the upcoming 2018 Superfund budget by $325 million, or one-third of its current budget. Trump also seeks to cut EPA's general operating budget by one-third as well.

The New York Times reported earlier this week that those budget cuts include a proposed cut to enforcement by $67 million. The government's enforcement department identifies the responsible parties and tries to make them pay for cleanup.

The law that enacted Superfund -- called the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, or CERCLA -- was passed in 1980. The law acquired the name "Superfund" because Congress established a tax on petroleum and chemical companies to create a "super fund" to pay for emergency responses and cleanups. Congress discontinued that tax in 1995.

According to a 2015 U.S. Government Accountability Office report, annual federal dollars to the Superfund program generally declined from about $2 billion to about $1.1 billion in constant 2013 dollars from fiscal years 1999 through 2013.

BSB Chief Executive Dave Palmer did not respond to a call requesting comment for this story.

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