As the State counterpart to the Federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), EHEA does extensive evaluations known as Public Health Assessments to determine whether people could be harmed by coming into contact with contaminants at hazardous waste sites and to make recommendations to people for protecting their health.

Other public agencies - Environmental Protection Agency, Idaho Department of Environmental Quality - are responsible for managing and regulating actual clean-up of hazardous waste sites. Recommendations made in our consultations and assessments are designed to prevent adverse health effects to the public. However, they do not carry regulatory authority.

Idaho has 12 High Priority Sites

To date, twelve highest priority hazardous waste sites - known as National Priorities List or NPL sites - have been designated in Idaho. In addition, there are approximately 60 hazardous waste sites that are part of the Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund inventory, but are not ranked high enough to be on the National Priorities List.

Idaho also has more than 2,000 hazardous waste sites permitted by the State of Idaho to produce or store hazardous wastes, and approximately 9,000 mines/prospects and 400 mining mill sites. Learn more about Idaho's hazardous waste sites.

Involving the Community

One of our program's guiding principles is community involvement. Community members are involved in all phases of planning, implementing, promoting, and evaluating environmental health activities in order to best protect public health.

Other program activities include creating environmental health lesson plans for Idaho teachers, and publishing an environmental health community resource directory for Idaho.