Category: Superfund

Creede: Town Board moves to annex part of Willow Creek floodplain

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Here’s an update on actions up in Creede to restore the floodplain between the town and the Rio Grande, from Matt Hildner writing for The Pueblo Chieftain. From the article:

The board adopted a land-use plan and agreed to a memorandum of understanding with the property’s owners. The agreement with Creede Resources, which owns 156 acres south of town, was approved unanimously and calls for the company to request annexation for 94 acres of flood plain by Oct. 1 and submit an application to the Colorado Voluntary Cleanup and Redevelopment Program.

The floodplain – a 1.5-mile stretch between Creede and the creek’s confluence with the Rio Grande that greets visitors as they enter the town on Colorado 149 – has been left largely barren and incapable of naturally restoring itself after nearly a century of mining in the former boomtown. While the Willow Creek Reclamation Committee and, more recently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, have tackled cleanup of the mining district north of town, the floodplain has been largely untouched with the exception of the southwestern corner that was reclaimed for the Mineral County Fairgrounds. “It’s been a long time getting to this point,” Mayor Rex Shepperd said. The land-use plan adopted by the city calls for leaving most of the floodplain as open space suitable for parks, trails and recreation.

More Coyote Gulch coverage here.

Nelson Tunnel/Commodore Waste Rock Pile superfund update

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From The Mineral County Miner:

Hays Griswold, overseeing the stabilization of the pile for the EPA, said the original plan to build a ramp up the channel for West Willow Creek that would serve as the stream bed was abandoned after this year’s runoff threatened to wash away part of the two-acre pile…

The new design for the project, once the channel is established in bedrock, would line grouted boulders four-to-six feet up the side of the bed. From there, the pile would be benched and pushed back further…

While the end of work is near on the rock pile, the EPA is still doing testing inside the Nelson Tunnel to determine the type and number of water sources entering the 8,000-foot adit that drains five mines before dumping into West Willow Creek.

More Coyote Gulch coverage here and here.

Energy policy — nuclear: Cotter cleanup

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Here’s a recap of the recent public meeting about the Lincoln Park superfund cleanup, from Tracy Harmon writing for The Pueblo Chieftain. From the article:

The Monday meeting focused on five-year review results at the Lincoln Park Superfund site which has been the target of cleanup efforts since 1984. The site en- compasses Cotter Corp’s uranium mill and a portion of the surrounding Lincoln Park neighborhood. Contamination from old unlined tailings ponds seeped into the groundwater during the early days of the mill operation which geared up in 1958. Some soils also were contaminated by tailings that escaped the mill site in the 1960s during a flood.

Although there have been massive efforts to clean up contaminated soils, Pat Smith, a remedial manager with the federal Environmental Protection Agency, said she is unwilling to have only the soils removed from the Superfund designation “due to new standards for the groundwater.” Much attention focused on the groundwater contamination and potential use of wells by residents who move into the area and are not notified of the uranium and molybdenum levels in their wells…

State health official Edgar Ethington said a major source of groundwater contamination, if not the main source – the old tailings ponds area – was cleaned up last year by Cotter workers. Some of the digging went down almost 30 feet to ground water in some areas…

Health officials said the newer lined tailings ponds, which are in the process of being dewatered and capped should help prevent future contamination. Phil Egidi of the state health department said as the newer tailings ponds are dewatered, Cotter will be required to “put a big, robust cap on it.”[…]

Discussion also focused on a “northwest plume” of contaminated groundwater located underneath the Shadow Hills Golf Course which is right next to the Cotter mill site. Cotter has hired a geologist to investigate the plume. “There is only uranium contamination, no molybdenum like the rest of the groundwater, so the simplest explanation is that it has a different source,” Ethington said. Ethington said investigation so far has ruled out an obvious possible source, an old, buried water channel. “Cotter still has work to do to see where the water is moving. They will install wells and test the water,” Ethington said.

More Coyote Gulch coverage here and here.

Creede: EPA may finish cleanup on Commodore waste rock pile by December

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The EPA has a plan to channel Willow Creek on bedrock which will remove the threat of the rock pile washing downstream at the Nelson Tunnel/Commodore Waste Rock superfund site. Here’s a report from Matt Hildner writing for The Pueblo Chieftain. From the article:

Hays Griswold, who’s overseeing the stabilization of the pile for the EPA, said the original plan to build a ramp up the channel for West Willow Creek that would serve as the stream bed was abandoned after this year’s runoff threatened to wash away part of the two-acre pile…

High runoff in 2005 did wash away large portions of the pile and sent debris streaming down the canyon where it threatened to block the flume that funnels the creek through town. That event highlighted the instability of the pile, which also contains contaminants such as arsenic, cadmium, lead, manganese and zinc, among others.

The new design for the project, once the channel is established in bedrock, would line grouted boulders four-to-six feet up the side of the bed. From there, the pile would be benched and pushed back further. “If we can make it as wide as we can, I don’t foresee anybody having to fight with it again like the county has and the city has every year,” he said. In the meantime, the EPA’s contractors are digging through various cribbing in the pile in an effort to reach the remaining third of the bedrock they believe is needed for the stream bed. Griswold estimated the stabilization of the waste rock pile would cost between $2 million to $3 million.

While the end of work is near on the rock pile, the EPA is still doing testing inside the Nelson Tunnel to determine the type and number of water sources entering the 8,000-foot adit that drains five mines before dumping into West Willow Creek. The agency did the first round of testing on the site in November and plans another round next week. After the data is gathered, the agency will do a feasibility study on the best cleanup solution for the tunnel, which is the watershed’s biggest contributor of cadmium, lead and zinc.

More Coyote Gulch coverage here.

Gunnison County: Standard Mine cleanup heading into second phase

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From The Crested Butte News (Seth Mensing):

Three representatives from the EPA visited the Crested Butte Town Council and the Gunnison Board of County Commissioners last month to tell them that the second round of remediation work at the site is set to begin this summer.
Gina Andrews, the EPA’s on-scene coordinator for the removal of the mining debris, told both groups that her group’s “task was to remove the waste rock and tailings pond and relocate the pond to a consolidated land fill and cap it off. We finished our portion of that work last fall.”

The council members and commissioners were shown photos of the site before and after the remediation work, which contrasted an abandoned mine—complete with mining cart trestle, a bridge and scattered debris—with a nearly natural high mountain valley.
The 10-acre Standard Mine is located in the Gunnison National Forest and on four patented mining claims on the backside of Mt. Emmons. Mining operations for zinc, lead, silver and gold began on the property in 1931 and continued until 1966, when the mine was abandoned.

In 2005, the property was placed on the National Priorities List for Superfund status, which initiated the EPA to take a series of steps to reclaim the land and treat contaminated water running from the mine into Elk Creek and eventually into the town and county’s watershed. In addition to removing about 50,000 cubic yards of rock waste and pumping the contents of the tailings pond through a filter, Andrews said a fisheries biologist from the U.S. Forest Service helped the team in the relocation of a stream that had been moved to serve the mine…

Andrews said her group would visit the site throughout the summer months to see how the newly constructed streambed holds up to the spring runoff and to monitor the other improvements while making repairs when and where they are needed. Remedial project manager Christina Progess said the next step for the EPA is to do a remedial investigation and feasibility study to get more information about the condition of the site and its effect on human health. The EPA will also be looking at different methods to treat water coming from the mine. One water purification method being tested at the site is a bioreactor that uses microorganisms to “eat” the contaminating heavy metals in the water. The result is water with 96 percent to 99 percent of the heavy metals removed. “The bioreactor is a step in the right direction,” said Progess. “It still doesn’t get us to the state’s stream water standard [for contaminants] but it could be one of several ways we approach the treatment of water coming out of the mine.”

Ground and surface water flows into the mine, where it is contaminated with arsenic, barium, lead, zinc, cadmium, copper and chromium, according to an EPA report that showed those metals at three times their natural level in Elk Creek below the mine site.
The water then flows out of the mine at a rate ranging from ten gallons per minute to 70 gallons per minute during peak runoff. The 40 square foot bioreactor that is now at the site is capable of treating only one gallon of contaminated water per minute. “If water treatment were needed, this system would be scaled out to treat whatever amount of water is coming out of the adit [mine opening],” said Progess. Progess conceded that expanding the bioreactor to treat 70 gallons of water per minute might not be feasible and because the technology is so new there isn’t a lot of data to show the long-term costs of operating and maintaining the reactor on a large scale…

Progess said the EPA would be able to calculate water flows to prepare for all eventualities.The remediation investigation and feasibility study will be done in March 2010, according to Progess, when the EPA will select a final preferred remedy and send out a proposed plan for public review and comment. The process continues with a Record of Decision, published in the federal register; the remedial design and action taking place; and finally completion of construction at the site. Progess said the EPA should hand the project over to the state in 2012. The EPA will then revisit the site every five years to monitor the condition and performance of site improvements. Funding for the project shifts from the EPA to the state, which entered the process early with a 10 percent cost-sharing arrangement. Local governments will not ever be responsible for paying to improve the mine site, said Progess.