The U.S. federal government is taking four mining companies to court over alleged environmental damage in the historic Coeur d’Alene mining district of northern Idaho.
Asarco (NYSE), Sunshine Mining and Refining (NYSE), Coeur d’Alene Mining (NYSE) and Hecla Mining (NYSE) have been named in a lawsuit filed by the Department of the Interior over the restoration of the Coeur d’Alene River. The effort is expected to cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
The lawsuit was filed under the Superfund law and the Clean Water Act.
The government and natives from the Coeur d’Alene area are conducting a damage assessment, scheduled to be completed in 1997, to determine the cost of restoration.
Allegations of environmental damage caused by the companies are not new and, following a 1986 settlement with the state of Idaho, the miners placed US$4.5 million into a trust used to reclaim sites along the river.
Holly Houston, executive director of Coeur d’Alene Basin Mining Information, says the defense department and its predecessors managed the mines of the Coeur d’Alene district during the First and Second World Wars and the Korean War, though no mention of the government’s role is made in the complaint.
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