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EPA seeks fine against Kellogg, ID mine
Release Date: 5/5/1997
Contact Information: Jeff Philip
philip.jeff@epamail.epa.gov
(206) 553-1465
97-33 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - May 5, 1997
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
A civil penalty of $125,000 against the Sunshine Mining and Refining Company of Kellogg, Idaho, is being sought by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in a complaint alleging that the company violated the terms of the EPA discharge permit that limits the amount of pollutants that can be released into the south fork of the Coeur d'Alene River and Big Creek.
The complaint was announced today by Chuck Clarke, EPA's Northwest regional administrator in Seattle.
A total of 49 violations are alleged to have occurred from September 1992 to November 1996, with 41 involving discharges from a Sunshine Mining tailings pond into the south fork of the Coeur d'Alene, and the remaining eight relating to discharges from a diversion dam into Big Creek.
Forty of the alleged violations in the discharges from the tailings pond involved unpermitted concentrations of heavy metals -- antimony (14 exceedances of the permit limits), iron (10 exceedances), manganese (8), gold (5), nickel (1), silver (1) and zinc (1). The complaint also alleged one discharge from the pond with an alkalinity higher than the allowable limit for pH.
From the diversion dam, the total flow of wastewater discharges into Big Creek is restricted to 42,000 gallons a day, principally because of toxic properties of contents of the effluent that include such heavy metals as antimony, arsenic, copper, lead, mercury and zinc.
The discharges are from the Sunshine Mining complex that includes a mine, a mill, a silver copper refinery and an antimony plant.
Sunshine Mining has 20 days from the time it receives the complaint to challenge the EPA allegations and to contest the penalty EPA has proposed.
The penalty is less than the $10,000 maximum per violation allowed by the federal Clean Water Act. The $125,000 proposed by EPA was calculated after the agency considered a number of factors, including the nature and gravity of the violations, the economic benefit the company may have realized by not meeting the terms of the permit, the company's prior compliance history and the ability of the company to pay.
CONTACTS
Bob Jacobson Jim Corpuz
EPA Press Officer EPA Compliance Officer
(206) 553-1203 (206) 553-8332
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NOTE TO EDITORS: Copies of the 11-page complaint issued to Sunshine Mining are available from EPA's Public Information Center in Seattle. If you are calling from Idaho, Washington, Oregon or Alaska, you can make the call toll-free by dialing (800) 424-4372. If you are outside those four states, please call (206) 553-1200.
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