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Helicopters Turn 'Moonscape' into 'Landscape'

Release Date: 9/23/1998
Contact Information: Cami Grandinetti, Mark MacIntyre, and Rich Fink
macintyre.mark@epamail.epa.gov
(206) 553-8696, (206) 553-7302, and (208) 786-5203

September 23, 1998 - - - - - - - - - - 98-50


For Immediate Release

Help for the denuded hillsides of the Bunker Hill Superfund site will be coming from an unlikely place...the sky! The sparse, acid and metal-tainted, bare soil slopes -- lying in the heart of northern Idaho’s panhandle -- are being re-seeded and fertilized by both land and helicopter in one of the largest re-vegetation projects ever undertaken in the region.

On Thursday, September 27, crews working for Tri-State Hydroseeding, Inc. will be mobilizing a twin-rotor, Sikorsky "Sky Crane" helicopter and hydroseeding equipment to re-vegetate approximately 200 acres of barren slopes in Government and Deadwood Gulches near Kellogg, Idaho. Grass, bushes and trees are conspicuously absent from the area’s steep slopes due to a combination of timber harvest practices, forest fires and sulfuric acid emissions from a nearby zinc plant, which was demolished in 1997. As a result, the hillsides are visibly brown, highly-eroded and contaminated with several heavy metals.

The project is the first phase of a 3.5 year, $8 million re-vegetation contract covering over 1000 acres of both Gulches and is part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s large-scale clean up effort. After a competitive bidding process, the contract was awarded to a local firm, Tri-State Hydroseeding, of Kingston, Idaho. Under terms of the contract, lime will be used to raise pH and organic amendments, including mulch and tackifiers will be applied to help provide a hillside toehold for accompanying native plant seed.

Because many of the local hillsides are too steep for land-based equipment, helicopters will suspend dispersion hoppers from lengths of braided steel cable, applying the landscape-enhancing mixture in much the same way that fire retardant is aerially dispersed over some wildfires. Erickson "Sky-Crane", subcontractor to Tri-State, will provide the heavy-duty "Sky Crane" helicopter, capable of carrying a 16,000 lb. payload, to cover roughly 160 of the 200 acres. The helicopter is scheduled to operate approximately 6-8 hours per day between 7 am and 5 pm.

Weather permitting, this phase of the Project is expected to be finished no later than October 31.