KELLOGG, Idaho – In a possible preview of its legal defense at trial in January, a mining industry spokeswoman claims the feds should be held liable for pollution in Idaho’s Silver Valley because they essentially ran the mines during World War II. The high-profile lawsuit filed against mining companies by the Coeur d’Alene Tribe nearly a decade ago, and entered by the U.S. Justice Department in 1996, seeks about $1 billion for cleanup. The state of Idaho announced a settlement offer of $250 million though 30-year-old cleanup of the basin has been estimated as high as $3.8 billion. Laura Skaer of the Northwest Mining Association told Republican U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage, “It is the height of hypocrisy, and fundamentally unfair … to be suing the only surviving mining companies for cleanup costs associated” with those activities, Skaer said. Environmentalists called the first-ever Panhandle hearing on Environmental Protection Agency policies a witch hunt to promote the Republican congressional delegation’s efforts to gut Superfund laws and remove EPA authority in the basin. Chenoweth-Hage has released a 60-page critique characterizing the agency’s actions as “haphazard, negligent and dangerous.” A court-ordered search for those responsible for contamination found 23 names, but federal agencies were left off the list at the directive of Justice, a regional Superfund official said.