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FORT HALL — In December the EPA issued a legal order to FMC Idaho LLC requiring the defunct phosphate plant to install a gas treatment system at its 10-acre Pond 16S. Alonzo Coby, chairman of the Fort Hall Business Council, said the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes are relieved that the order was issued, but concerned about the federal agency’s ability to protect public health and the environment from toxic waste left at the Pocatello site. Pond 16S contain enough hazardous waste to fill 200 Olympic-sized swimming pools, Coby said. The pond contains heavy metals, radioactive, ignitable and reactive waste from processing elemental phosphate between 1993 and 1998. FMC was allowed to cap the pond in 1998 as part of a settlement with the EPA for mismanagement of hazardous waste at the site, said FHBC member Blaine Edmo. He added that federal regulation prohibited disposal without treatment.
Council member Aldene Pevo said the Tribes objected to capping Pond 16S at the time the settlement was negotiated. "Here we are seven years later, the waste is reacting and generating poisonous hydrogen cyanide, phosphine and hydrogen sulfide,” she said. The hazardous waste pond overflowed during closure and another council member, Marlene Skunkcap, said waste has been reacting since 2001.
“The lower explosive limit for phosphine is 20,000 ppm — when concentrations reach that level, it explodes and burns,” she said. The health limit for the gas is 0.3 ppm and occupational health agencies recommend exposure be limited to 15 minutes, Skunkcap said. Representatives for the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes inspected the FMC facility in July of 2005, but were kept away from the pond area and not permitted to check temperatures and pressure reading, said FHBC Vice Chairman LeJuan Tyler.
Tyler said the tribes notified the EPA of its concerns and in January 2006 FMC notified the Tribes and the EPA that equipment at the site had malfunctioned.
However in June of 2006, the Tribes forwarded photographs of the burning pond to the EPA. "In other words, the EPA would have never known about this dangerous situation without the Tribes informing them,” Tyler said. “The fact that the Tribes have to do the work of the EPA is deeply concerning.” The Tribes alleged that FMC was aware toxic gas was being created under the caps as early as 1999, but failed to notify the EPA. There are about 120 acres of buried hazardous waste at the FMC site located on the Fort Hall reservation. Coby said injecting nitrogen into the ponds to keep them from igniting is only a Band-Aid. “We need a long-term solution to this problem,” he said. Coby said the Tribes have worked diligently to force FMC to clean up the site.
Councilman Richard Kutch said it’s time for FMC to clean up hazardous waste at the former processing plant, regardless of cost. “If that means digging it up and shipping it out of Idaho, or stabilizing it within the ponds then FMC needs to do this,” he said. “Our people’s health does not come with a price tag. We need to ensure this area of the reservation is cleaned up properly, not just merely fenced off.” Tribes wary of toxic waste cleanup closed phosphate plant remains a concern, tribal officials say.