The Environmental Protection Agency has fined Hecla Mining Company $143,000 for improper disposal and management of hazardous waste at their mine on Admiralty Island.
The settlement agreement cited five violations in 2019 at Greens Creek Mine, a silver mine in the Tongass National Forest. Most were related to lead contamination.
“The company operates in a relatively remote and pristine area in Alaska, underscoring their obligation to prevent pollution from entering public lands surrounding the mine,” regional EPA Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Director Ed Kowalski said in a press release.
Inspectors discovered lead contamination around the perimeter of a storage building that was improperly sealed during a 2019 inspection. A gap between the building’s walls and its foundation allowed dust with lead in it to seep out into the soil.
That same inspection revealed improper disposal of other materials containing high levels of lead, including air filtration bags from the mine’s laboratory and tools used to process metal ore.
The mining tools, which are made of clay, were discarded inside the mine’s tailings storage, an outdoor area where leftover rock and other waste materials are stored. Greens Creek claimed that they processed the used tools to recover lead, but the EPA inspection still found hazardous levels of lead in the discarded materials.
The remaining violations were procedural — a week of missed inspections and a mislabeled oil container.
Hecla Mining’s Director of Government Affairs Mike Satre said the company has fixed the violations in the years since the 2019 inspection, and the contaminated soil around that storage building has been removed and shipped off to a hazardous waste facility.
“We’re just doing some ongoing sampling to make sure that we’ve collected all of it,” Satre said. “And we’ve redone the sheathing on the building. We’ve redone the insulation on the building, to ensure that it won’t leak through again.”
He added that Greens Creek has introduced new policies and training to improve the mine’s oversight and labeling of hazardous waste. And contaminated mining tools and air filter bags are now shipped off site to a dedicated hazardous waste dump.
The EPA settlement requires that the company continue cleanup and monitoring efforts under the supervision of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.
