Love Our Lake Week spotlights Lake Coeur d’Alene’s mining legacy
Love Our Lake Week opened at McEuen Park with a reminder that Lake Coeur d’Alene still holds about 83 million metric tons of contaminated waste.
About 83 million metric tons of contaminated waste still sit at the bottom of Lake Coeur d’Alene, and boaters, swimmers and jet skiers are still using the lake. Love Our Lake Week opened Monday morning at the McEuen Park Pavilion. The gathering brought tribal leaders, scientists, restoration staff, local governments and nonprofit partners to discuss the lake’s shoreline and water quality, both still shaped by mining in the Silver Valley.
Gene Hemene James, vice chairman of the Coeur d’Alene Tribal Council, called the lake sacred and said its protection is work that will span generations. Rebecca Stevens, the Coeur d’Alene Tribe’s restoration coordinator, said the contamination is still moving through the system and that cleanup upstream remains essential even as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency continues remediation work.
Water potato harvesting has been curtailed in some areas because of contamination in the lake, Stevens said.
The EPA added the Bunker Hill Mining and Metallurgical Complex Superfund Site to the National Priorities List in 1983, after mining in the Coeur d’Alene Basin began in 1883. The agency maps the contaminated area across about 166 river miles, including Lake Coeur d’Alene and part of the Spokane River. The Coeur d’Alene Tribe puts the amount of mine waste dumped into the watershed over more than 100 years at about 72 million tons.
The tribe withdrew its support for the 2009 Lake Management Plan in 2019, saying water quality had continued to decline and that more action was needed. EPA cleanup records put a suction dredge operation from 1932 to 1968, removing about 34.5 million tons of contaminated sediment from the Coeur d’Alene River and depositing it on Mission Flats in a 2,000-acre tailings pond about 25 to 30 feet deep.
Jamie Brunner of the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality urged residents to learn more about the lake’s condition and share accurate information. Love Our Lake Week runs July 13-17 and includes public programming such as trivia night at Vantage Point Brewing and an appearance by the Rose Creek Singers at Music at McEuen later in the week.
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