EPA officials offer updates to county commissioners

After announcing a “last call” for the Libby Superfund Cleanup process last week, federal officials provided local officials with a list of updates surrounding the remediation effort.

Environmental Protection Agency officials met with the Lincoln County commissioners on Wednesday to provide updates on current actions, including the Libby Superfund site feasibility study, current public outreach and a decision on grant funding.

Lincoln County’s Asbestos Resource Program grant funding from the EPA came into question in May when a state audit found irregularities in the spending of grant money; that some of the funds had been used to pay former County Attorney R. Allen Payne. Last month, commissioners requested guidance from EPA officials to determine if Payne’s compensation was prohibited, why it might be prohibited and whether or not the county is required to pay that compensation back to the federal agency.

Rebecca Thomas, project manager for the Libby Superfund site, said the agency is currently working through the matter in their legal department. Thomas said the county should see a letter from the agency by next week, the week starting July 11, explaining how the county should proceed.

“They’re going through legal right now, putting in the citation that would indicate how funds would be used and paid back,” Thomas told the commissioners. “I hope to get that out very soon. We recognize it’s really important for the county so you can make decisions as to how to move forward.”

Thomas also said agency officials are discussing about closing the current Asbestos Resource Program grant and opening new one near the end of the calendar year, with guidelines that are more clear on how funds may be spent.

“We certainly want to continue our relationship with the grant. We’ve done some great work with it,” Thomas said.

“We definitely want to get it all right,” Commissioner Greg Larson said.

Community Involvement Coordinator Jennifer Harrison-Lane told commissioners that the EPA has finalized a draft of the community involvement update — a document produced by the EPA every five years to keep the public informed on the Superfund site process.

Harrison-Lane and other officials met with 23 residents in the last year that she said are representative of the community and found that people appear to be well informed on the process that’s occurred in Lincoln County over the last 16 years.

“Feedback was really quite positive,” Harrison-Lane said. “It was really nice to hear that everyone we met with was really well informed.”

The most recent request from residents, Harrison-Lane said, was to provide more information through social media. She said the agency will proceed with social media in mind as a communication tool with the community.

Thomas said that just two residents attended an open-house event last fall at Riverfront Park. She said those two residents had agreed to have the agency come to their homes for investigations and only wanted to know when the process was scheduled to happen on their property.

“Part of me thinks that’s great news,” Thomas said. “It just means people are trusting us to do our jobs. The people that are interested in the process have already participated.”

Commissioner Mike Cole said he believes the minor attendance may point to residents looking forward to the EPA pulling out of Libby after 16 years.

“That does tell that people, in their thoughts and minds, are just kind of done with the whole thing,” Cole said.

While the rest of the EPA’s effort is looking to pull out of Lincoln County by 2017, studies around the former W.R. Grace and Company vermiculite mine site are beginning to reach full-steam.

Christina Progess, EPA project manager for the former vermiculite mine site, told commissioners that the feasibility study for Operational Unit 3, the area containing the mine, is moving forward, but on a much longer timeline than the rest of the project.

Currently, Progess is working to develop a coordinated plan in case of a wildfire in the former mine site, where asbestos contamination is still heavily concentrated.

“It’s a response plan that the agencies would engage in, in the event of a wildfire in OU3; the concern being: what if there’s asbestos in the smoke or ash?” Progess said.

In that event, Progess said the effort would involve the forest service, the State Department of Environmental Quality and the State Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. The plan seeks to determine which agencies would take on the roles and responsibilities of public information, messaging, data collection and post-event evaluation.

“It’s a complex process and problem,” Progess said. “We’re really having a lot of progress made on the finalization of this plan. It’s never really final, but at least [finalization] on what the development and details of what that looks like.”

Progess said the agency does understand the pressure to produce the plan soon, with fire season expected to arrive sometime in July. She said the EPA hopes to provide the most updated plan to all the agencies involved soon in order to hold an exercise of the plan in either late July or early August.

“People are usually laser-focused on fire that time of year, so it might be a good time to do that,” Commissioner Mark Peck said.

Reporter Seaborn Larson may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at slarson@dailyinterlake.com.