The EPA in the Silver Valley: the rest of the story
September 25, 2010
In September of 1983 the Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA, took up residence in the Silver Valley. Over 100 years of mining and the refinement and shipping of the metals that came to the surface as a result of that mining had left its mark in and on our community. The story of what brought them here is pretty well known. Very briefly, Gulf Resources, had recently acquired The Bunker Hill Co, the company for which the Bunker Hill Superfund Site was named. Soon after, the result of poor management and aggressive corporate raiding put Gulf into bankruptcy. Brief ownership by a small handful of others proved no more effective that Gulf's. Nothing stopped the doomed company from continuing its downward slide. In the words of one of Bunker Hill's vice presidents at the time of its closure, "The old girl's going down."
And down she went.
And down went Shoshone County's population, from an historic high of nearly 23,000 to our present population of about 13,000, almost precisely what it was in 1910 ... 100 years ago.
So far, then, while the EPA has been in our Valley "helping" us about 45 percent of our friends and neighbors have had to move out. What effects has that had on those still here? Find a two or three or four year old phone book, and thumb through the yellow pages. Note the business that are gone.
And down went attendance in local school districts.
So here we are, now. Twenty-seven years after the EPA began ministering to us with such tender, loving care. The Sunshine has disappeared. There is talk of reopening, but so far just talk.
And, here we are today. We have a ROD on the table--a Record of Decision--that stipulates that the EPA will be here for another 50 to 90 years. That is a total of 120 years, give or take.
How about some perspective. In 120 years, from 1860 to 1980, America fought the War Between the States, the Spanish-American War, the First World War, the Second World War, the Korean "Conflict," and Vietnam. There were other interstitial hostilities. But, the EPA will need 120 years to clean up a canyon under a quarter mile wide and seven miles long. Ninety more years, even after the human health aspect of it has already taken care of in the first 27 years.
More perspective. The Panama Canal was built from 1907 to 1914. Seven years. If the Silver Valley was excavated 1/4 mile wide and 7 miles long, it would have to be done 400 times to equal the Panama Canal. Remember, it is mostly cleaned up in the first 27 years.
The Trans-Continental Railroad was built between 1863 and 1869. One thousand seven-hundred miles of track over the plains, river valleys, bridges, trestles, through tunnels and across the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Six years, not 120 years.1,777 the