— Living near the Homestake —
Gardening – a pathway to exposure

Linda Evers inspects her garden at her Milan home on June 4. Evers dug out 30 tons of soil and repliced it wiht 50 tons of new soil in order to grow what she considered to be safe vegetables [Kathy Helms / Independent]

Last of a three-part series
By Kathy Helms
Dine Bureau

MILAN — When the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry recently declared the Homestake mill a public health hazard, it did not have any vegetable or soil sample results to determine what contaminant levels were in the vegetables grown by local gardeners and therefore didn’t know what levels people may have been exposed to via this route.

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry said the amount of uranium, selenium, and molybdenum ingested would depend upon how often they consumed vegetables, if they used contaminated well water to irrigate the vegetables, and if the vegetables were thoroughly cleaned prior to eating them.

The federal agency advised residents who have vegetable gardens to wash the vegetables, especially root vegetables, thoroughly before cooking or eating them.

Linda Evers, a former uranium miller, was way ahead of them. When Evers bought her home located a half-mile from Homestake in June 2004, she was afraid to grow a garden without first making sure the soil was safe – especially after she found that her home was plumbed with high-pressure water hose from the mines.

“This place has been on village of Milan water since 1985 when Homestake paid for an alternate water source for well owners. But the plumbing under the house was still mine equipment. We bought here June 4, 2004, and had the whole house plumbed by June 28, 2004,” she said.

Her property is located next door to a home recently purchased by Michael Simonson, who has since found that the property contained all sorts of mining memorabilia, including old uranium ore bags.

“We had steel and we had drill bits and rock bolts — not quite as much as Mike has at his place, but we still had uranium stuff. We did find an old jack-leg here,” she said.
After moving into her new home, she had about 30 tons of soil removed and about 50 tons of clean fill dirt brought in. “I wanted to garden right away but I knew better. We started in 2004. I got all the dirt out that year and then got one load brought in, and then the next year two loads, and the next year two loads.

“This year, I can garden my whole area because I finally got enough clean fill dirt to garden all the way out there.” She started off with a small garden and then expanded it as she brought in fresh dirt. “We did the same thing to the terrace and greenhouse,” she said.

This year, she is building a strawberry and sweet pea patch along one of the fence lines inside the family compound, which is surrounded by a 10-foot-high red fence built from old mining timbers which was in place when she bought the house.

Her garden is like a smorgasbord: Cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, green beans, beets, okra, watermelon, cantaloupe, cucumbers, giant pumpkins for the kids for Halloween; potatoes, artichokes, garlic, yellow pear tomatoes, cabbage, and bell peppers.

Around the greenhouse and in the terraces the family grows chili peppers, tomatoes, Indian corn, rosemary, parsley, sage, dill, snapdragons, and cosmos flowers. She amends the soil with droppings from the rabbits she raises and waters the garden with village water.

“There are actually two wells on this place. The first one right here by the house has been capped off for years, but there was a well out back that was still operational. We thought at first that we would water the critters with it because it’s back there by the chickens.

“We filled the water buckets up one night and the next morning I went out to check on them and the water had turned grayish and there were little chunks of things floating around in it. I know chickens throw stuff in their water but they don’t make it turn gray.

“So then we got some buckets out in the garden area and filled them up with water and let them sit for 24 hours and it did the same thing — turned a grayish, charcoal-ish color and started growing things in it.

“It looks clear when it comes out of the faucet — there’s no smell, there’s nothing to make you think that this water is anything but water. But let it set for 24 hours and it grows into a different beast. So we don’t use it at all,” she said.

After state and federal agencies tested the well in 2005 and the results came back, she said, “We made it so you couldn’t get water out. It’s just a framed-in hole back there that we keep wired up so nobody can get into it.”

Evers said that when she and her family harvest the garden, “just in case, we wash the root-veggies very well and we also skin them before we put them up. As far as I understand from the powers that be, that’s enough to keep your veggies from being bad.

“But we already went in with clean dirt and clean water, so I’m not worried about my vegetable garden — but I wouldn’t eat anything else that I grew. We just don’t grow flowers everywhere, and we don’t grow any vegetables other than where the fill dirt has been put in.”

Airborne contaminants from the mill site are a concern, however.

“I worry about it constantly,” she admits. “On a calm night the smell from the tailings pond just gets in the air – rotten eggs, sulfur, chemicals. If it’s been raining a lot it seems like you smell more chemicals than sulfur; on dry days when you can smell it, it seems like it’s more sulfuric.

“The good news is most of our wind is south and west and we’re on the south and east side of the pond. For us to actually feel the sprinklers, feel the dirt, it has to be a pretty hard wind straight out of the north. I know it happens, but it’s not the norm for out here.”