From The Denver Post (Bruce Finley):
A Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment “compliance advisory” orders site owner U.S. Energy Corp. to clean up the contamination at the Mount Emmons mine near Crested Butte.
But a watchdog group says mining regulators have not collected required bond money from the company to guarantee a cleanup if U.S. Energy can’t do the job.“We’re doing everything in our power to comply with all regulations. We certainly want to do everything we can to keep the drinking water as safe as we can,” U.S. Energy chief executive Keith Larsen said. “We’re addressing the issues. It’s not our obligation to get it out of the creek. It is our obligation to treat water as it comes out of the mine.”
The contamination documented by state water-quality inspectors complicates a case where state mining regulators already have granted U.S. Energy a prospecting permit to work one of the world’s largest and purest known deposits of molybdenum.
More Gunnison River basin coverage here.