Bunker Hill: A Battle in Which Survivors Could Be Filled with Lead

It is becoming increasingly clear that the Reagan administration perceives compliance with environmental and occupational safety regulations as an unwarranted cost to U.S. industry.

Last month, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) awarded Bunker Hill Co. a five-year postponement in federal regulations concerning the company's lead workers. The OS HA backdown came after Bunker Hill's parent company, Gulf Resources and Chemical Corporation Inc. (no relation to Gulf Oil) announced its plans to sell or close the 94-year-old Bunker Hill lead/zinc/silver mine and smelter complex in Kellogg, Idaho. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), also late in September, granted Bunker Hill a five-year extension of its current exemption from compliance with parts of the Clean Air Act.

The Bunker Hill facility provides about 20 percent of total U.S. production of lead, silver and zinc; it is Idaho's second largest employer and contributes about $200 million annually to the state's economy.

Gulf Resources cited low market prices for lead and zinc, as well as escalating costs for labor, electricity, and compliance with federal safety and environmental regulations, as the factors behind its decision to sell the plant-or shut it down if no buyer can be found.

The company stated: "This action is part of the company's new long-range strategy to withdraw, from the lead, zinc and silver mining and refining business and expand its coal and oil and gas operations which have been generating significant profits."

Worried that Kellogg, Idaho might suffer the same fate as Anaconda, Montana (where Anaconda Copper Co. closed down its 1,500-employee copper smelter last year), representatives of Bunker Hill's 2, 100 employees agreed with the company's management to take a one-year pay cut, and to ask OSHA and EPA to make some exceptions for Bunker Hill. On September 22, the company announced that OSHA reviewers had approved the dropping or settling of a number of citations issued to Bunker Hill last year for failure to comply with OSHA regulations. At the same time the reviewers granted the company extra time for the plant to comply with federal standards which specify the level of lead in a worker's blood at which he or she must be transferred to a safer job or put on sick leave.

Although the agreements came after Gulf Resources decided to sell Bunker Hill, workers and state government officials who helped draft the package are hoping it will help attract a buyer.

Lead has been determined by OSHA to cause damage to the nervous, urinary, and reproductive systems and to inhibit the body's synthesis of the molecule heme, which is responsible for oxygen transport to the entire body by the blood. Even low levels of exposure can be very dangerous if they continue for long periods of time, since lead accumulates in the body.

More than 20 companies besides Bunker Hill have sought variances from the OSHA lead regulations for dozens of lead smelters and plants across the U.S.-including most of the nation's major lead-producing facilities. OSHA is currently studying the application on a case-by-case basis, and is expected to decide in the next few weeks whether to award one-year variances.

"We're not expecting that (the Bunker Hill settlement) will be held up as a precedent for any other cases," said OSHA spokesperson Susan Fleming, voting that the Bunker Hill case is unique because Bunker Hill had citations for many previous violations to settle.

Asked whether Bunker Hill's announcement that it was selling out was a factor in OSHA's settlement decision, Fleming said, "Well, it certainly was a concern of the employees and the management," who worked together to draw up the original settlement agreement. "However, even with the modifications that we've accepted it will cost them a pretty penny-an estimated $880,000-to clean that plant up," she said.

Nearly 20 percent of the lead used in the U.S. (in paint, batteries, ammunition, the construction and transportation industries, and as a gasoline additive) is currently imported -either as ore or metal-from Canada, Peru, Bolivia, Mexico, and South America.