Holden Mine Site Cleanup Natural Resource Damage Assessment process

Natural Resource Damage Assessment process at the Holden Mine Site

CERCLA provides a process for determining the degree of injury to natural resources due to the release of hazardous substances. Under CERCLA, the injured natural resources must be restored, and/or the public (represented by Trustees) may be compensated for loss of the injured resources. On February 15, 2002, Intalco delivered a Draft Injury Determination Report to the Trustees for review. The natural resource trustees for the Holden Mine Site consist of:

• USDA-Forest Service (lead trustee),
• State of Washington,
• USDOI – Fish and Wildlife Service, and the
• Yakama Nation.

In the Administrative Order on Consent for the Holden site, it was intended that the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) process follow a parallel track to the Remedial Investigation/Feasibility Study (RI/FS) process, so that decisions on selection of the cleanup remedy and off-site natural resource restoration projects occur simultaneously.

• The habitat equivalency analysis (HEA) process is being used as a tool for facilitating Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) settlement discussions between the parties.

• The habitat equivalency analysis (HEA) is used to determine the amount of restoration (credit) that is required to compensate for past, current, and future (i.e. residual to any cleanup) injuries (debit).

• The habitat equivalency analysis (HEA) provides a means to evaluate whether settlement options meet the Trustees’ statutory obligation to “make the public whole”

• Potentially injured Natural Resources to be addressed at the Holden Mine site include:
  • Railroad Creek instream habitat
  • Railroad Creek riparian habitat
  • Wetlands habitat
  • Upland habitat
  • Lacustrine habitat of Lake Chelan
  • Groundwater

The Trustees compiled a list of potential restoration projects that can be used as compensation for natural resource damages caused by the Holden Mine. The list of potential restoration projects was narrowed down to 21 potential restoration projects, which will serve as the basis for settlement discussions.

The Trustees used the following criteria to select potential restoration projects:

• Location near the area of injury (w/in Railroad Creek drainage preferred, followed by the north part of the Chelan Basin).
• Location on public lands (or potentially private lands acquired into public ownership as part of this process).
• Restoration of similar habitat or resources as those that were injured.
• Mitigation of perpetual release of hazardous substances.
• Projects that would improve the environment and are consistent with the Trustees regulatory responsibility but would not otherwise be funded.
• Projects that are technically feasible
• Projects that provide appropriate compensation for injured resources and services

By early spring of 2005, the Natural Resource Trustees completed the Holden Mine habitat equivalency analysis (HEA) and began natural resource damage (NRD) Settlement discussions with Intalco. However, these Settlement discussions were suspended until after release of the Remedial Action ROD.