POISONING CHILDREN

By John Osborn

In 1974 the corporate directors of Gulf Resources and Chemical Company of Houston, Texas faced adecision: Should the company continue operating a damaged Bunker Hill lead smelter in north Idaho? 

The dilemma arose because in September, 1973, the lead smelter's primary pollution control device, called the "baghouse,'~ had burned. If Gulf continued operations it would have to vent lead-contaminated smoke directly into the air, poisoning surrounding communities and the vulnerable children who lived there.

But the price for lead was on the rise: Gulf stood to make millions of dollars jfthe company did not shut down the Bunker Hill lead smelter. President Nixon's price controls had just been lifted. Miners' and smelter workers' wages remained low. Lead prices were rocketing.

Early in 1974 when Gulf's directors met, they calculated what the corporate cost for each leaded child would be. They· used detailed information from EI Paso, Texas, where an Asarco Inc. smelter had leaded children, causing health problems ranging from anemia and mental retardation to stomach aches and hyperactivity. Gulf's vice president Frank Woodruff figured the liability: "El Paso-200 children-$S to $10,000 per kid," according to the record. Gulf s directors estimated the liability at "6-7 million" for poisoning the SOO children in Kellogg, Idaho.

Even prior to this, Gulf's directors had known they were putting an Idaho community at risk. In 1972 Gulf asked a Silver Valley physician to check Kellogg children's lead levels: most were elevated. Gulf's response was to begin moving salaried employees out of harm's way. Wage workers, in contrast, were never warned.

The corporate "bottom line" determined the decision of Gulf's directors: Gulf would continue operating the smelter and poison the surrounding communities.

The communities of Kellogg and Smelterville suffered as much lead contamination in the first three months of 1974 as they would have in 20 years of normal smelter operations. Idaho's state government (which had no lead regulations to . enforce) documented lead accumulation in excess of30 tons per square mile over one year's time in Kellogg. But not until Apri I did the state government take effective action to stop the smelter's operation. Gulf repaired the lead smelter's pollution control devices ..

By August the highest levels of lead ever recorded in humans were being recorded in Idaho. A little girl, Arlene Yoss, had blood lead levels of 174 ug/dl (micrograms per deciliter, with 10 ug being the currentthreshold of concern); her sister Edie, 122; and her brother Ray, III. In 1977 the Yosses and another family sued Gulf Resources for $20 million. In 1981 the families settled for $6.5 - $8.8 million, depending on how long the children lived. Later other children joined the original families in seeking damages from Gulf, bringing the total estimated cost of the settlement to about $30 million. The court records were then se~led from the public - later to be opened in 1990 by Judge Ryan.

In 1981 Gulfclosed the Bunker Hill smelter, Idaho's largest employer, putting nearly 2,200 employees out of work and devastating the local economy. Gulf earned more than $88 million in tax credits through the 1981 tax reform.

In 1982 Gulfsold the Bunker Hill properties for $9.8 million to Bunker Limited Partnership of Jack Kendrick, J.R. Simplot, Harry Magnuson, and Duane Hagadone. Bunker LTD dismantled and sold parts of the Bunker Hill complex: in 1987 more than 4 miles of lead-contaminated railroad ties and rails were removed. What Bunker LTD did with the salvaged materials is unknown, but it was speculated that railroad ties were sold to unsuspecting families in nearby Spokane for landscaping.

Bunker Limited Partnership had help from Idaho's political establishment. James McClure, former U.S. Senator and current lobbyist in Washington, D.C., for mining companies, helped secure the appointment of Robie Russell as EPA's regional administrator in 1986 and 1989. With Russell at EPA, Bunker LTD transferred assets elsewhere to avoid liability. Russell thwarted his EPA staff. The EPA staff then secrctly contacted the A TSDR (Agency for Toxic Substances and Diseasc Registry).' ATSDR took the steps to protect human hcalth. Russell's actions were documented in a 1990 report by EPA's inspector general. Immediately prior to the report's release Russell abruptly resigned.

Bunker LTD was not alone in trying to dodge cleanup costs.

Gulf also worked to transfer assets. In 1989 Gulf's move to Bermuda was blockcd by EPA and the Dept. of Justice (DOJ). EPA and DOJ failed, however, to block subsequent Gulf efforts at transferring assets out of the United States. Gulf corporate officials, led by David Rowland and Graham F. Laccy, were later accused of systematically looting $ I 75 million between 1989 and 1992. Gulfleft behind enormous debts to pensioners in Idaho and Washington, debts for the cleanup, and debts to bondholders. As a result of bankruptcy proceedings ending in 1994, pensioners lost25 percent of their medical benefits. Most of Gulf's cleanup costs, estimated at $1 00 million, will now fall to taxpayers in Idaho and nationally.

The cleanup is underway. In 1982 EPA created the nation's second largest Superfund site, a "box" covering 21 square miles and 7 river miles - a small fraction of the contaminated Spokane-Coeurd' Alene watershed. In 1985 Superfund cleanup projects began and continue today. In 1991, in part because of the failure to clean up the larger Spokane-Coeur d'Alene watershed outside the "box," the Coeur d' Alene Tribe sued 8 mining companies, Union Pacific Railroad, and the State of Idaho.

There is good news: The children's blood lead levels have dropped dramatically since 1974 due largely to closing the smelter, removing soil from yards, and teaching parents how to limit exposure. In 1994 blood lead levels sampled inside the Superfund "box" were the lowest since testing began in 1974. Still, 17 percent of the 416 children tested had levels above 10 ug/dl. The figure is up compared with data from 1993 when 14.8 percent of those tested were above the 10 ug mark. Outside the Superfund "box," data on children's lead levels are unavailable.

Resource extraction is giving way to tourism in Idaho's Silver Valley. Some of America's richest and most dramatic mining, forest, and railroad history occurred in Idaho's Silver Valley, and this potentially lucrative history is now "mined" by a growing recreation trade. Towering above the Bunker Hill complex is Silver Mountain where skiers now ride a state-ofthe-art gondola (funded in part by local taxpayers and by McClure's $6.4 million addition to the Forest Service 1987 appropriations bill).

And what of the future of the cleanup effort in one of the world's most contaminated watersheds? For a society more comfortable with "quiCk fixes," the long-term commitment needed to restore the Spokane-Coeur d' Alene watershed is a challenge. Yet failure to clean up will continue to result in significant impacts on the health of humans, wildlife and fish, and the region's economy.

Recognizing this, the state of Idaho under recently-rctired Cecil Andrus worked with the Coeur d' Alene Indian Tribe to develop a proposal that combined (I) funding with (2) an institutional framework for the long-tcrm cleanup. Both former Speaker Tom Foley and Rep. Larry LaRocco committed themselves publicly to cleaning up the watershed.

Today Andrus, Foley, and LaRocco are gone from political power. But the heavy metal problems remain - compounded in the Spokane-Coeurd' Alene watcrshed by massive ovcrcutting of forests. Elections in 1994 may have changed political decision-makcrs, but they did not erase the huge environmcntal deficits that have been accumulating here during the past century. Political leadership and courage is needed now more than ever.


November/December 1994 TRANSITIONS 3