Beginning in the early 1990s, a Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) has been conducted in the Coeur d’Alene Basin (Basin). Created in 1980, under the Comprehensive Environmental Response and Compensation Act (CERCLA or Superfund), the NRDA process focused on injuries to natural resources resulting from releases of hazardous substances from mining and mineral processing operations in the Coeur d'Alene Basin. Over the life of the damage assessment, numerous settlements have been reached with all named defendants and, as of September 8, 2011, a judgment was entered by the U.S. District Court of Idaho that ended the litigation. As a result, the Coeur d'Alene Basin Natural Resource Trustee Council was created, consisting of the Tribe, U.S. Department of Interior (DOI), U.S. Department of Agriculture (DOA), and the State of Idaho. The Trustee Council is responsible for the development and implementation of a Restoration Plan. With the support of an established Natural Resource Restoration Team (NRRT), made up of resource experts from the individual Trustees, the governments have committed to work together to develop, adopt, and implement restoration actions consistent with a Restoration Plan that will restore, replace or acquire the equivalent resources to those injured. All activities will occur utilizing funding sources that have been made available through various NRDA settlements.
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