EAST HELENA — Federal officials hope to have a better understanding of the nature and extent of the arsenic and selenium plumes migrating through East Helena from the Asarco lead smelter and come up with a plan to control their movement — or even remove the elevated levels — within the next two years.

But the actual implementation of a plan, which could include a water treatment plant, will take a few years beyond that, according to Linda Jacobsen, who is handling cleanup duties at the Asarco plant site for the Environmental Protection Agency.

She doesn’t have a timeline for the work, but noted that once the remedy is agreed upon, it probably will take two to three years to get the necessary permits and choose a site.

Meanwhile, Asarco has installed 13 more monitoring wells and stepped up its testing. Water in four private wells on Gail Street is checked monthly, and while arsenic is detectable in some, it’s still below federal drinking-water standards.

The company also is checking 55 monitoring wells quarterly, plus 120 wells and six surface water sites semi-annually. In addition, Asarco’s Environmental Program Manager Jon Nickel said they’ll test people’s wells in the general East Helena area if requested by residents.

“We won’t go out to Lake Helena, but we’ve checked out Eastgate, even though we know there aren’t impacted areas there. We just want to satisfy residents, and are happy to collect samples,” Nickel told about 25 people gathered at the East Helena Volunteer Fire Hall Thursday night. He can be reached at 227-4529.

Most people in East Helena are on city water, so they shouldn’t be accessing the water in the plumes. But according to the Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry, if the amount of selenium found below East Helena were consumed during a period of a few months, a person drinking it might experience symptoms like deformed fingernails or toenails, and brittle hair or hair loss. Those most at risk are infants, elementary and preschool age children, since they would get a higher dose due to their lower body weights.

In comparison, the amount of arsenic present under the city would cause nausea and vomiting if a person were to drink it. After a few weeks, that amount of arsenic could destroy a person’s digestive tract and cause organ failure.

The meeting, which was mostly attended by state, federal and local environmental agency representatives, was held at the request of the EPA who wanted to update the community on recent changes to the annual work plan that was discussed last fall. Because of the discovery of the selenium plume in 2006, EPA and Asarco decided that additional work is needed to better understand the extent of the underground contamination.

Earlier in the day, the EPA and state Department of Environmental Quality hosted a tour, showing the hazardous waste repository for the smelting debris and the newest monitoring wells that are being installed.

Nickel said that Asarco is eager to move forward on cleanup work this summer, but added that the company and the EPA have a difference of opinion on some of its aspects. Neither he nor Jacobsen would elaborate, but they’re planning to meet today.

“If we don’t get prompt approval, what Iver (Johnson, the state DEQ project manager at the site) described as the work plan for the summer will be considerably pared down,” Nickel said.

That work includes demolition of three of Asarco’s four smokestacks, as well as removal of about a dozen structures.

Lead smelting activities at the Asarco site began in the late 1880s, and continued until 2001. Federal oversight of the cleanup of contaminated soils both at the plant and offsite began in the 1980s, and continues today.

Reporter Eve Byron: 447-4076 or eve.byron@helenair.com