It would create one of the largest Superfund sites in America and the first in which most of the toxic pollution comes from another country. But those are not the only unique aspects of an EPA proposal to add the upper reaches of the Columbia River in Washington state to the list of the nation’s most contaminated lands and waters.

A final designation of about 150 miles of the river under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, better known as the Superfund law, could finally bring some closure to a dispute between the United States and Canada that began a century ago after wastes from a massive smelter in British Columbia started flowing across the border.

The designation is also expected to help restore diminished salmon runs that Native Americans in the Northwest have relied upon for thousands of years.

The upper Columbia River basin includes natural resources that “have been and continue to be integral to our subsistence and culture since time immemorial,” Gregory Abrahamson, chairman of the Spokane Tribal Business Council, said in a January letter to the EPA.

“Historic and ongoing releases of hazardous substances to the Site threatens or directly affects the health and welfare of our members, our economic security, and the Spokane Tribe’s political integrity,” Abrahamson wrote.

Other tribes in the region, Washington Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee and state environmental agencies are backing the EPA’s Superfund proposal, but it faces opposition from many local officials and some Republicans, including House Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash.

“The congresswoman recognizes the importance of addressing potential contamination in the Upper Columbia River, but she has serious concerns about what this listing would mean for the region,” Rodgers spokesman Kyle VonEnde said via email. “She is actively engaging with the EPA and community members to ensure transparency in this process as next steps are determined to protect the environment as well as people’s health and safety.”

Cross-border contaminants

The long stretch of the river from the Grand Coulee Dam to the Canadian border has been contaminated by at least nine types of hazardous wastes, including arsenic, lead and zinc, that mostly came from one of the world’s largest smelters 10 miles inside Canada. The Teck Metals facility in Trail, B.C., has been dumping metals and other harmful compounds directly into the river and through its air emissions since it opened in 1896, according to the EPA.

The agency completed an assessment of the risks to human health in 2021, finding that lead in soils in residential areas posed the biggest threat. An ecological risk assessment is underway, but preliminary findings show that “cadmium, lead and zinc present the greatest and most widespread risk to plants, invertebrates, mammals, and birds exposed to soil in the upland area,” the EPA said.

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