From the Silverton Standard & The Miner (Mark Esper) via The Durango Herald:
The creek has long been considered one of the worst sources of metals contamination in the upper Animas River basin, owing to water laden with heavy metals gushing from abandoned mines in the Gladstone area. And the water quality in the creek appears to be worsening, said Sabrina Forrest, site assessment manager for the EPA in Denver. This degradation was not what EPA had in mind in the 1990s when EPA backed away from possible Superfund listing of the watershed, Forrest said. Prior EPA management had agreed to forego listing as long as progress was being made in the watershed. Forrest said the EPA is conducting a site reassessment to determine if the complex of mines near Gladstone could qualify for the National Priorities List (NPL), which would make it eligible for the so-called Superfund. Superfund is officially called the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act…
Since 2009, monitoring has been conducted to see how water quality and flows have been changing since the American Tunnel was plugged and water treatment in Gladstone was stopped in 2004. “We don’t have a comprehensive-enough data set to say that this is a (National Priorities List)-caliber site,” Forrest said. She said more sampling has been completed in recent weeks. “It will be another four to eight weeks before we start getting data and tasking our contractors to start poring over it,” Forrest said. She added that she expects a determination about whether the site qualifies as a Superfund priority to come in January or February at the earliest…
Bill Simon, coordinator of the Animas River Stakeholders Group, said that while the group has sought “appropriate and cost-effective assistance” from the EPA, the group has “consistently rejected” the Superfund program. The stakeholders group was formed in 1994 as a collaborative approach to water-quality issues in the region and as an alternative to a Superfund designation in the area. It includes representatives from the EPA, Colorado Department of Health and Environment, the San Juan Public Lands Office and community members. Many in the Silverton community felt that the stigma of such a Superfund designation would devastate the area’s tourism industry. “Nevertheless, all options are on the table, as they have been in the past,” Simon said. “The EPA has obligations that (it) must attempt to address, and we have ours. They are not always the same.”