BUTTE (AP) -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday released its preferred plan for addressing decades of mine waste and water contamination here, proposing to concentrate on water treatment rather than removal of mine tailings.

The plan, with a price estimated at between $39 million and $56 million, calls for leaving what is known as the Parrot mine tailings in place along a major Butte storm drain, rather than attempting to remove them.

Ron Bertram, the EPA's project manager in Helena, said Monday that federal officials believe removing the tailings would do little at this point to prevent or decrease groundwater contamination.

The state of Montana had wanted the EPA's plan to include removal of the tailings.

''The tailings have sat up there for 100 years or more now, and basically we believe ... in effect that a lot of those contaminates that were in the tailings have already been absorbed into the aquifer itself," Bertram told The Associated Press. ''From our point of view, it makes a lot more sense to treat the water rather than remove the tailings."

The EPA's plan calls for building a new water treatment plant that would capture and remove heavy metals such as copper and zinc from the water before its eventual release into Silver Bow Creek.

The treatment plant also would replace temporary treatment lagoons currently in place to treat other water contaminated with heavy metals.

As the main responsible party for the cleanup, the Atlantic Richfield Co. earlier installed a series of groundwater collection lagoons. They have worked well, but Bertram said the EPA is concerned about the future cost of maintaining them.

''We have assessed the treatment lagoons and believe they would meet the water- quality criteria, but there is not yet knowledge available on the operation and maintenance of them," he told The Montana Standard in Butte.

The agency is taking public comment on its proposal through Feb. 18, and Bertram said officials hope to have a final ''record of decision" by June.

The plan also calls for the EPA to remove contaminated dust or dirt from attics of area homes, if the dust is entering living areas and posing a health threat.

Bertram said the wide range in the cost estimate of the plan takes into account the possibility that a second treatment plant may have to be built to deal with storm water.

If existing practices, such as seeding and sedimentation ponds, do not result in runoff water meeting standards, then a second treatment plant might be needed, he said.