The Bunker Hill Mine and Metallurgical site, located in Northern Idaho is one of the nation’s largest toxic waste sites. Generations of the area’s children have suffered from childhood lead poisoning caused by industrial pollution in one of the most extensive cases recorded in the country. The cleanup plan, approved by the Bush Administration’s EPA, are inadequate to protect the health of the surrounding community.

More than 70 organizations from across the country have cosigned a letter urging the
Environmental Protection Agency to address these serious environmental injustices suffered by the community around the Bunker Hill Mine and Metallurgical site. The coalition of national and regional groups are calling on the newly appointed EPA Directors of the Superfund and Environmental Justice programs to rectify the unsafe cleanup plan drafted under the Bush Administration. Sierra Club, Breast Cancer Fund, Just Transition Alliance, Center for Health, Environment & Justice (CHEJ) and many other national, state and regional groups have joined together to urge the EPA to improve the proposed cleanup plan.

Local EPA bureaucrats appointed under the previous Administration are using $3.2 million in federal economic stimulus funding to move ahead on a controversial plan to dispose of waste at the Mission site, near the National Historic Landmark’s Sacred Heart Mission. The community strongly opposes this plan and fear continued exposure to toxic chemicals. Homes in the area are still threatened by lead contamination levels up to 52,000 parts per million (ppm). EPA’s lead cleanup standards are 400 ppm, however the site cleanup plan requires remediating lead to an unsafe level of 1,000 ppm.

Where ever you are you can help support environmental justice by signing our on-line petition http://www.petitiononline.com/SVCRC1/petition.html

and help bring about the Lead Health Clinic with your donations.

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Many photos can be found on the SVA facebook page.