Bunker Hill, ID : ecological restoration

British Columbia Mine Reclamation Symposium

Bunker Hill, ID : ecological restoration Henry, Chuck; Brown, Sally; Chaney, Rufus; Compton, Harry

Abstract

The Bunker Hill Superfund site in Idaho is the second largest in the nation. From smelting operations, soils on the mountainsides became severely acidic and contaminated with high concentrations of metals. Erosion from these hillsides, as well as an estimated 70 million tonnes of mine tailings were purposely dumped into the river; potentially depositing up to 700 million tonnes of contaminated sediment to the river. USDA, U of Washington, U of Idaho, and the Northwest Biosolids Management Association members installed Phases I and II of this demonstration in spring and fall 1997, consisting of surface application of "supermulch" to tailings and steep, eroded hillsides. Biosolids from King County, Everett, Tacoma and Cowlitz County, WA, and Post Falls, Hayden, and Coeur d'Alêne, ID were mixed with wood ash from Washington Water Power, Louisiana Pacific or Kimberly- Clark. Plant establishment has been dramatic, as well as there being reestablishment of soil microbial communities and evidence of wildlife usage, suggesting that these treatments are highly successful in revegetation and erosion control.

Item Metadata

Title	Bunker Hill, ID : ecological restoration
Creator	Henry, Chuck; Brown, Sally; Chaney, Rufus; Compton, Harry
Contributor	British Columbia Mine Reclamation Symposium; University of British Columbia. Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering
Date Issued	1998
Description	The Bunker Hill Superfund site in Idaho is the second largest in the nation. From smelting operations, soils on the mountainsides became severely acidic and contaminated with high concentrations of metals. Erosion from these hillsides, as well as an estimated 70 million tonnes of mine tailings were purposely dumped into the river; potentially depositing up to 700 million tonnes of contaminated sediment to the river. USDA, U of Washington, U of Idaho, and the Northwest Biosolids Management Association members installed Phases I and II of this demonstration in spring and fall 1997, consisting of surface application of "supermulch" to tailings and steep, eroded hillsides. Biosolids from King County, Everett, Tacoma and Cowlitz County, WA, and Post Falls, Hayden, and Coeur d'Alêne, ID were mixed with wood ash from Washington Water Power, Louisiana Pacific or Kimberly- Clark. Plant establishment has been dramatic, as well as there being reestablishment of soil microbial communities and evidence of wildlife usage, suggesting that these treatments are highly successful in revegetation and erosion control.
Extent	497706 bytes
Genre	Conference Paper
Type	Text
File Format	application/pdf
Language	eng
Date Available	2009-07-07
Provider	Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Rights	Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
DOI	10.14288/1.0056585
URI	http://hdl.handle.net/2429/10385
Affiliation	Non UBC
Peer Review Status	Unreviewed
Scholarly Level	Other
Copyright Holder	British Columbia Technical and Research Committee on Reclamation
Rights URI	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Aggregated Source Repository	DSpace

Open Collections

British Columbia Mine Reclamation Symposium