From Colorado Public Radio (Grace Hood):
Silverton and San Juan County leaders voted unanimously to pursue Superfund status on Monday to clean up the Gold King and other inactive mines in the area. The plan includes 46 mines and two settling areas.
“I think history has been made. This is one of the most important decisions ever made by county commissioner or town council,” said San Juan County Commissioner Scott Fetchenhier…
“There were two big concerns about Superfund that this community had,” Silverton Standard editor Mike Esper told CPR News January. “One: It would kind of foreclose on the future of returning to mining. And the other one, the big one: The bad publicity. We are totally reliant on tourism at this point. … But, the Aug. 5 blowout … kind of blew that argument out of the water. That game is over. We had the bad publicity by not having Superfund, and by not addressing the problem that’s only going to make the publicity worse.”
The spill also brought new and wider attention to southwestern Colorado’s inactive mines beyond the Gold King, some of which leach water laced with heavy metals like zinc and iron.
Fetchenhier worked closely with the EPA before the vote to secure certain assurances in writing. Those included making sure that town and county leaders have a seat at the table during the long remediation process. That’s where EPA officials decide which mines need work, and what that work will be.
The Superfund site could be finalized as soon as this fall. But it will take years of research before actual clean up can begin.
From the Farmington Daily Times (Steve Garrison):
The town of Silverton and San Juan County, Colo., will request that Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper support a Superfund designation for 48 polluted mines in the mountains north of Silverton.
The request will come in the form of a letter to Hickenlooper, specifically asking him to work with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials to add the Bonita Peak Mining District — the name selected for the cleanup site — to the Superfund National Priorities List as a federal cleanup site.
Town and county officials have negotiated in the past months with the EPA regarding what mines and mine-related sources would be included for cleanup as part of the Bonita Peak Mining District.
The EPA states in a letter to Hickenlooper dated Feb. 19 that the 48 mines and mine-related sources dump arsenic, cadmium, copper, manganese, zinc, lead and aluminum into the Animas River at a rate of 3,740 gallons per minute or 5.4 million gallons per day.
Hickenlooper must inform the EPA by Feb. 29 whether he supports the designation.
The Superfund designation would allow the EPA to use funds appropriated by Congress to remediate the mining district and sue parties responsible for the contamination. The EPA’s Superfund appropriation in fiscal year 2015 was $1.1 billion, according to the U.S. EPA’s website.
Town and county officials voted unanimously in favor of the decision at a special meeting held here Monday afternoon.
Officials told the approximately 80 residents in attendance that voting in favor of the Superfund designation meant Silverton would continue to be involved in the remediation process.
From The Denver Post (Bruce Finley):
Reversing decades of opposition, Silverton and San Juan County leaders voted Monday to ask the state to pursue a Superfund cleanup of the Gold King and 45 other inactive mines contaminating headwaters of the Animas River.
Local leaders also are lining up Gov. John Hickenlooper and Sen. Michael Bennet as backup for dealing with the Environmental Protection Agency…
And local officials are demanding the EPA continue running a temporary water treatment plant above Silverton to reduce contamination until a final cleanup is done. Superfund cleanups typically take longer than a decade, depending partly on congressional funding.
“I was not in favor of Superfund. I still don’t like it. But if we don’t do it, it will be done for us,” Commissioner Ernie Kuhlman told 90 or so residents packing Silverton’s Town Hall before the vote.
“If we don’t make this move, they will, and we won’t have a seat at the table.”
Silverton’s seven town trustees and San Juan County’s three commissioners voted unanimously to send a letter to Hickenlooper urging him to ask the EPA to designate a “Bonita Peak Mining District” environmental disaster — the first step toward a Superfund cleanup…
The locals are pressing the EPA to commit to running a temporary water treatment plant above Silverton until a final cleanup is done and perhaps install another plant.
The EPA put in the plant to remove millions of tons of metals sludge still draining from the Gold King, although not from other nearby mines.
Silverton officials say they want the EPA to treat waste from those mines, too, during a multiyear Superfund process.