TRIUMPH, Idaho Environmental Protection Agency officials hope to meet with some Triumph parents in the coming week to discuss cleaning up contaminated soil in their yards.

But a leader of the local group opposed to the EPA's plan to make Triumph a Superfund cleanup site called the meetings a ploy to frighten some residents of the embattled Blaine County community, northeast of Hailey.

''We feel that the EPA is taking advantage of the fact that we are a small community, and is trying to divide us,'' Donna Rose of Concerned Citizens of Triumph wrote in an Oct. 2 letter to Blaine County commissioners, the state Land Board and ASARCO Mining Co.

''EPA will find the weakest, most uninvolved member of the community and start there,'' Rose wrote.

Chris Field, on-scene coordinator for the EPA effort, said the agency was only trying to protect children who might be at risk from silver mine tailings containing lead and arsenic.

For the time being, he said, nothing would be done without a property owner's permission.

''We have no kind of hidden agenda,'' Field said. ''We just think the kids are quite possibly at risk.''

Triumph was nominated for the EPA's National Priorities list in May.

A public comment period ended in August, but it may be as long as a year and a half before a final recommendation on Superfund status.