COEUR d'ALENE - The federal government is anticipating the biggest cuts yet to the plan addressing widespread metal contamination in the Coeur d'Alene River Basin.

After more analysis of potential cleanup sites and preventive steps, the Environmental Protection Agency expects to cut hundreds of millions from the price tag of the proposed Upper Coeur d'Alene River Basin Cleanup Plan.

That would bring the initially proposed, and much protested, cost of $1.34 billion down to about $910 million, said Bill Adams, EPA team leader.

"It feels good. All those decisions are based upon science," Adams said at a meeting on cleanup updates at the EPA office in Coeur d'Alene.

Congressional response has been a little mixed, he acknowledged.

"What we've heard is, 'It's still not enough,'" Adams said. "They still want to see more cut."

The agency expects to release a final cleanup decision in a ROD Amendment next month or in January, Adams added.

The biggest items to be axed from the plan, which aims at protecting human health and wildlife from metal contamination, include dropping the Lucky Friday mining complex as a clean-up site.

"It's still an active site," Adams explained. "Active facilities were in there in the event that were not (active) in the future."

That cut will save about $60 million, Adams estimated.

The agency is also sticking with scrapping the idea to install more than $300 million worth of lining along the South Fork of the Coeur d'Alene River.

And after reviewing thousands of comments on the proposed plan, the agency is dividing projects into high and low-priority categories.

The high-priority projects have strong local support, Adams said. Those in the upper basin will cost about $460 million.

"Remedy protection is something everybody agrees with," Adams said as an example, referring to projects that ensure areas cleared of waste aren't flooded and recontaminated.

Mark MacIntyre with EPA confirmed that the reduced work should also cut down the plan's timeline for implementation, initially gauged at 90 years.

"It's too hard to tell at this point," MacIntyre said of how many years would be shaved off. "There are too many things that could happen to quantify the number of years. But we would expect it to tangibly reduce the time."

Surface water, groundwater, soil and sediments in the basin have been severely contaminated by a century of pollution from mining activities.

The region still contains high concentrations of lead, zinc, cadmium, arsenic and other contaminants.

Rob Hanson with the Department of Environmental Quality noted that about 3 million square feet of properties have been cleaned of metal contaminants this year, most in the Osburn area.

"It looks like another three years," Hanson said of how much longer individual property remediation will take. "We're trying to figure out how to finish this program, did we miss anything?"

Adams added at the meeting that Hecla's initial payments on the $263.4 million settlement have been placed into special accounts, and will be used for projects starting next year.

The dollars will go toward a variety of purposes, he said.

"It helps a lot," he said.