A Map of Rural Superfund Sites

Last August fellow Daily Yonder reporter Ilana Newman and I visited a 1,500 square-mile lead cleanup site in the Coeur d'Alene mountains of North Idaho, a region nicknamed the Silver Valley because of its international reputation for high-production silver mines. Industrial mining has more than a century-long history in this region, and lead is one of the byproducts of the silver mining and refining process.

For almost a century, mining companies dumped tailings, or waste, directly into the Coeur d'Alene River and its tributaries, eventually leading to one of the worst lead poisoning events in United States history. By the early 1970s, the Silver Valley had some of the highest blood lead levels ever recorded in children...