THE DIRT: Canyon Creek’s path to cleanup
Significant progress has been made in Canyon Creek over the past several years, with multiple major remediation projects recently completed or underway. These efforts are aimed at removing contaminated material, remediating and reconstructing stream channels to provide a clean habitat. Work in Canyon Creek has been prioritized to reduce risk for residents living in close proximity to mine-impacted materials with high concentration of metals such as lead.
Cleanup began at the Star Project in 2023 and is well into its three-year construction plan. In 2025 alone, crews excavated roughly 48,000 cubic yards (CY) of waste material, which is about 4,800 dump truck loads moving 10 CY per load. To reclaim the area, approximately 47,000 CY of clean fill and vegetative cover soils will be placed back into the site. In addition, about 800 linear feet (LF) of stream will be reconstructed this year. Over the project’s duration, waste excavation will total around 150,000 CY, with nearly 2,800 LF of stream reconstruction completed.
Another major effort, the Tamarack No. 7 Project, has a cleanup scheduled from 2025 to 2026. Work in 2025 included excavation of approximately 109,000 CY of waste and the remediation of about 1,900 LF of stream channel. By project completion in 2026, it is projected that about 165,000 CY of waste will be removed and 3,100 LF of stream restored.
Earlier efforts laid important groundwork for this recent progress. From 2019 through 2022, the SVNRT Remediation Project successfully removed nearly 600,000 CY of waste material. While no direct stream remediation was conducted under this project, it moved mine waste into an appropriately constructed repository and added substantial disposal capacity for future cleanup work. The Canyon Complex Repository (CCR) now provides about 1.8 million CY of total capacity to support ongoing and upcoming cleanup activities.
Looking forward, several additional projects are planned to maintain momentum. These include work on the Flynn Mine/Black Bear Fraction, Canyon Creek Garbage Dump, Standard Mammoth Reach, Frisco Reach, Gem Complex, Lower Canyon Creek Riparian Area, and the Standard Mammoth Millsite. These sites stretch from just above the Star to the bottom of Canyon Creek.
Overall, these projects represent a significant investment in the health and resilience of Canyon Creek. The pace of work achieved over the last few years is expected to continue in the coming years. These projects strengthen Canyon Creek’s health and resilience and will continue driving measurable environmental progress in the area.
The Dirt is a series of informative articles focused on all aspects of cleanup efforts associated with the Bunker Hill Superfund Site. Our goal is to promote community awareness of contamination issues, to provide tools for protecting public health, and to keep the community informed of current and future cleanup projects. The Dirt is a group of committed and local experts from multiple agencies, including the Basin Environmental Improvement Project Commission, Panhandle Health District, Shoshone County, Silver Valley Economic Development Corporation, and the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality.
