EPA: Idaho mine violates law
By JOHN MILLER
Associated Press
Friday, June 26, 2009 9:58 AM PDT
BOISE — Federal regulators said Thursday an Idaho mine that Monsanto Co. depends on to make its Roundup weed killer has violated federal and state water quality laws almost since it opened, sending selenium and other heavy metals into the region’s waterways.
The Environmental Protection Agency said problems at the St. Louis-based company’s South Rasmussen Mine near the Idaho-Wyoming border were first documented in April 2002. That’s just 15 months after the mine won Bureau of Land Management approval, according to documents released by the EPA to The Associated Press.
More recently, the mine has been unable to stop discharges of heavy metal-laden water from a waste dump, despite BLM conclusions nearly a decade ago that precautions wouldn’t “allow selenium or other contaminants to migrate from the lease.”
Monsanto takes phosphate ore from the mine and turns it into elemental phosphorous, a key Roundup ingredient. Toxic selenium and other heavy metals are also exposed during open pit mining and dumped in waste rock piles, where they can concentrate and be carried away by runoff or natural springs.
Disclosure of South Rasmussen’s problems comes at a sensitive time for Monsanto: It’s seeking federal approval for a new mine nearby, Blackfoot Bridge, to supply the Roundup component once Rasmussen is played out in 2011. But environmentalists contend the company’s assurances that cutting-edge measures will keep naturally occurring selenium from spreading remind them of earlier promises long since broken.
In 2007, the EPA ordered Monsanto to stop releasing selenium-tainted water from South Rasmussen’s Horseshoe Dump. Though the company has tried to remedy the problem, it’s still violating the federal Clean Water Act, federal officials said.
“The measures they have implemented aren’t working,” said Eva DeMaria, an EPA enforcement official in Seattle. Monsanto “is aware of our concerns. They are trying to address it.”
Asked if EPA plans further action, DeMaria declined comment. “It’s under investigation,” she said.
In the 1990s, sheep and horses died from selenium poisoning related to mining elsewhere in southeastern Idaho’s rich phosphate belt. At least 17 phosphate mines here are now under federal Superfund authority.
Just this May, the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality added Sheep Creek, a Blackfoot River tributary being polluted by South Rasmussen, to its list of waterways that don’t meet state standards due to selenium contamination.
State scientists now say at least 15 streams in southeastern Idaho exceed selenium standards, up from six in 2002. Monsanto must satisfy the concerns of federal regulators — and eventually judges, in the event of lawsuits — that operations like Blackfoot Bridge won’t exacerbate pollution.
“You’re going to have to have assurances that there’s not going to be an increase,” said Greg Mladenka, a DEQ water quality scientist in Pocatello.
Monsanto lobbyist Trent Clark in Soda Springs, Idaho, said the company has resolved issues raised by two EPA violation notices.
In the latest, from September 2007, EPA inspectors found water containing “very high levels of selenium” flowing from the mine’s Horseshoe Dump even in dry weather, “unlawful under the Clean Water Act,” the agency said.
Despite Monsanto’s efforts, the problems have continued, EPA officials said.
