Living with Lead

The Coeur d Alenes, a twenty-five by ten mile portion of the Idaho Panhandle, is home to one of the most productive mining districts in world history. Historically the globe s richest silver district and also one of the nation s biggest lead and zinc producers, the Coeur d Alenes legacy also includes environmental pollution on an epic scale. For decades local waters were fouled with tailings from the mining district s more than one hundred mines and mills and the air surrounding Kellogg, Idaho was laced with lead and other toxic heavy metals issuing from the Bunker Hill Company s smelter. The same industrial processes that damaged the environment and harmed human health, however, also provided economic sustenance to thousands of local residents and a string of proud, working class communities. Living with Leadendeavors to entangle the costs and benefits of a century of mining, milling, and smelting in a small western city and the region that surrounds it."