-Caveat Lector-

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/101486_dam25.shtml

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/101486_dam25.shtml

Report on foot-wide gaps in dam is pulled from Web site

Wednesday, December 25, 2002

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

MISSOULA, Mont. -- The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has removed a document
from its Web site that revealed officials found foot-wide gaps in a portion of the 
aging
Milltown Dam upstream from here.

Instead, the Web site now contains a notice that anyone wishing to view the information
must file a request with the agency through the federal Freedom of Information Act.

The agency did not explain the reason behind the change, and a spokesman did not
immediately return a phone call seeking comment yesterday.

The one-page document was on the agency's Web site as late as Friday. It revealed that 
an
engineer with Northwestern Energy, which owns the dam, called the FERC twice on Oct. 25
to report that company officials had found gaps between the bottom of the dam's 
concrete
spillway and its earthen foundation.

An engineer said the gaps could be filled with grout, and a NorthWestern spokeswoman,
Claudia Rapkoch, said the dam is "safe and structurally sound."

Missoula County commissioners, however, were upset that they were never told about the
problem. They learned of it only after a county employee came across the document on
FERC's Web site last week.

Commissioners sent a written complaint to the agency Friday, after an FERC engineer 
said
he could not discuss the gaps because of "national security."

By Monday, the document had been removed from FERC's Web site.

Peter Nielsen, environmental health supervisor at Missoula's City-County Health
Department, said FERC is improperly withholding information.

"After Sept. 11, FERC put the clamps on certain things so terrorists could not get in 
there
and get diagrams to Grand Coulee," he said. "But we are not Grand Coulee.

"Our downtown is five miles downstream from this dam, and we are in fact threatened by
this structure. The citizens of Missoula have a concern for their public health, 
safety and
welfare, and we are having information withheld from us."

The dam and its Milltown Reservoir are the terminus of the nation's largest Superfund
environmental cleanup site, the resting place for decades of mine waste that washed 120
miles down the Clark Fork River from Butte and Anaconda.

� 1998-2002 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

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