Lincoln County residents had their first opportunity to weigh in on the proposed clean-up of the now-closed W.R. Grace and Company vermiculite mine near Libby last week.

The discussion, sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency, brought interested parties together to discuss their goals for the long-term use of the property after the project’s completion.

With the established goals of discussing desired post-cleanup use of the area surrounding the mine, three areas of discussion were specifically prohibited at the outset of the meeting: discussion of the actual boundaries of Operational Unit Three, the human health and ecological risk assessment and the potential liability of W.R. Grace and Company.

Lincoln County Commissioner Mark Peck attended the meeting and said he understands the reason for limiting the scope of the conversation.

“The goal was to focus discussion on the objectives, and I think if we’d have gotten bogged down in those other topics we’d end up getting nowhere,” Peck said.

The primary objectives expressed by community members in attendance stemmed around multiple-use access to the property, estimated at more than 30,000 acres, surrounding the mine site.

Mel Parker, who owns property near Rainy Creek, said access to the surrounding land is vital and access requires use of Rainy Creek Road, the only access road into the surrounding land.

“Rainy Creek Road is a lifeline for access to that property,” Parker said. “We need to clean up Rainy Creek from the highway to the amphitheater.”

One area of specific concern was erosion control. Several participants explained the need to shore up the road and prevent erosion into Rainy Creek as a source of contamination for both the creek and directly into the Kootenai River.

Others argued the need for environmental restoration in order to allow recreational access to the area. Hunting, fishing, timber harvesting and berry-picking were specific activities mentioned as desired future uses for the land.

“I think they identified the key issues,” Peck said. “Those were restoration of the Rainy Creek drainage back to multiple use, as much as possible.”

Some questioned the value ascribed to public comment by the agency. Citizens Advisory Group member Leroy Thom asked the question.

“How much weight does public opinion hold?”

Agency contractor Jeff McKenzie of CDM Smith said it was impossible to quantify the impact of public comment on the process.

“It’s all considered,” he said. “We hear it and it’s looked at on a case-by-case basis. Until you go through the whole process, you really don’t know what you’ve got.”

Christina Progess, the agency’s project manager for Operational Unit Three, said several different criteria are weighed together in making final decisions.

“It really is a function of how all the stakeholders see the modifying criteria,” she said.

The criteria used in the decision-making process, according to McKenzie, are first the overall protectiveness of the site and compliance with applicable, relevant and appropriate requirements such as state and local laws and ordinances. The balancing criteria are the long-term effectiveness, the short-term effectiveness, the reduction of toxicity and mobility, the ability to implement a solution and the overall cost. The final two factors, considered modifying criteria, are state and community acceptance.

The clean-up at the mine site is significantly behind the rest of the project, which has been underway for more than 15 years. The mine site project has been delayed for a variety of reasons, many of them technical.

“We’ve been busy doing the ecological risk assessment,” Progess said. “We’ve had to develop new techniques because this has never been done with asbestos before.”

Commissioner Peck speculated litigation could be one reason why the mine site project is so far behind the cleanup of the rest of the site.

“Those things, boundaries and liability, are still the subjects of litigation. Going into those could have caused the Grace people to get up and walk out of the discussion,” he said. “The litigation process needs to get settled so we all know what we’re dealing with and we can move forward.”

Progess said the company has been cooperating with the agency in moving the project forward.

“It has been a cooperative process, we’re operating under an administrative order of consent,” she said.

Cooperation could become a bigger issue, however, as financial liability is determined on the site. The agency wants Grace to pick up the full tab for the clean-up, above and beyond the $250 million awarded in the bankruptcy settlement for the other parts of the site.

“EPA’s goal is to have W.R. Grace and Company fund whatever clean-up is necessary at Operational Unit Three for any exposures that could result in cumulative exposures above EPA’s risk targets,” Progess said.