The metallic color came from the Gold King Mine, near the town of Silverton in the San Juan Range. The abandoned mine had been plugged by an earthen and rock dam known as a bulkhead, behind which orange, highly acidic drainage water accumulated. But after a federal Environmental Protection Agency employee accidentally breached the plug during an unauthorized excavation, 3.5 million gallons of additional runoff rushed downstream.

The worker and the EPA came in for a slew of outrage and blame. Alarmed Tribal Nations and towns halted drinking water and irrigation operations; tourists fled the region during the height of tourist season.

But here’s the surprising opinion of Ty Churchwell, the mining coordinator for Trout Unlimited: “Looking back, this can be taken as a positive thing because of what happened afterward.” He sits on a community advisory group for the Bonita Peak Mining District, a Superfund site that contains the Gold King mine.

“We’ve got federal Superfund designation, and it’s the only tool at our disposal to fix this problem,” he said. The “problem” is unregulated hard-rock mining that began 160 years ago.

“I know this isn’t conventional wisdom,” Churchwell said, “but no fish were killed in Durango (30 miles downstream) because of the spill. It was ugly and shocking, but a lot of that orange was rust, and the acidic water was diluted by the time it hit Durango and downstream.”

EPA’s website points out that over 5.4 million gallons of acid mine runoff enters the Animas River daily.

The way Churchwell tells it, water quality and numbers of fish had been declining in the Upper Animas River since the early 2000s. That’s when the last mining operation ended and closed its water treatment plant.

Six months after the news-making spill almost a decade ago, EPA geared up to make sure untreated mine waste would not head for the river again.

Reid Christopher, a 62-year-old former electrician and mountain guide, became the Gold King Mine’s restoration whiz, taking over an old wastewater treatment plant in the area in 2019. Now, he said, only treated water leaves the 11,439-foot elevation mine. 

This July, Christopher took me on a tour of the wastewater plant. In a nutshell, cleanup begins when the constantly flowing wastewater gets shuttled into settling ponds.

Christopher then pumps hydrated lime into the water, boosting its pH to 9.25. The high pH unlocks the heavy metals from suspension, and an added flocculant causes the heavy metals to clump together inside football field-sized textile filtration bags.

Clear—surprisingly clean—water streams from the bags into Cement Creek, Christopher said, and the process is so effective he said he’d like to treat the drainage from other major mineshafts in Bonita Peak.

Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency remains gun-shy about talking to the press. It was deluged with bad publicity following the 2015 blowout, though as Churchwell points out, “it wasn’t the EPA that mined the San Juan Mountains and left their mess behind.”

The messes from abandoned mines, at Gold King and around the entire West, have never received much attention from Congress. Until the Biden administration passed the Inflation Reduction Act, the EPA depended on annual appropriations. That meant for almost four decades, the agency never got enough money to thoroughly clean up the heavy-metal mine waste flowing out of hard rock mines like Gold King.

And because the mess was buried deep in the mountains at elevations from 10,500 feet to over 12,500 feet, the agency couldn’t compete for federal dollars until it grabbed all the environmental disaster headlines of summer 2015.

Even now, said Churchill, and despite available funding, “The EPA has 48 mine-impacted locations in the Upper Animas River and only so many dollars to work with. They have to get the most bang for their buck.”

Commercial use of metals in the sludge might possibly make some money for the EPA. The Colorado School of Mines has taken water samples to see what—if anything—can be retrieved from the mine waste.

But even if mine sludge is worthless, cleaning acidic water at the top of the watershed is worthwhile for every living thing downstream.  

For now, Christopher is always looking to hire locals for dirt work and hauling. He said the jobs could last a lifetime.

Dave Marston is publisher of Writers on the Range, Writersontherange.org, the independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively debate about Western issues. He lives in Durango.

The post Acidic mine drainage haunts Western rivers appeared first on Writers On The Range.

The answer is Bristol Bay’s wild salmon fishery, and it is no exaggeration to say it is the world’s most productive. Every year, some 40-60 million salmon return to the bay’s headwaters.

Yet in late July, the Army Corps of Engineers gave the proposed gold and silver Pebble Mine the go-ahead in its final environmental review. For the Trump administration, it’s been full speed ahead even though opposition continues to gain momentum.

More than 80 percent of Bristol Bay residents are against it. Prominent jewelers like Tiffany & Co., Ben Bridge and Zale’s have expressed their opposition to the Pebble Mine and vowed not to use any gold extracted from it. Even Donald Trump Jr. opposes the mine.

Commercial fisherman, churches, restaurants, seafood processors, hunters and anglers, Earthworks, the Wild Salmon Center and grocery-store companies all support protection of the Bristol Bay salmon fishery over large-scale mining. And nobody has been as steadfast in their opposition, or stands to lose as much, as the Native tribes who live around this magnificent bay.

“We are salmon people,” said Alannah Hurley, executive director of United Tribes of Bristol Bay, when she testified before a Congressional committee last year.  “But salmon are more than food for us. Salmon are central to our cultural identity, our spirituality and our sacred way of life that has made us who we are for thousands of years in the Bristol Bay region.”

In 2014, the Environmental Protection Agency completed a scientific assessment and proposed safety limits on disposing mine waste in Bristol Bay waters to ensure that salmon wouldn’t be harmed by mining. But in its evaluation of three possible scenarios, the EPA found that even the smallest mine would result in “unacceptable adverse effects.”

And what does “small” mean when talking about a massive open pit and tailings dam for storing 1.1 billion tons of mine waste? There would also be a 270-megawatt power plant, a 188-mile long natural gas pipeline that crosses Cook Inlet, an 82-mile transportation corridor, and a port on the Alaska coast. And it’s worth noting that Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd., the Canadian company behind the mine, has promised its shareholders that Pebble will inevitably expand to its full size, thanks to subsequent permit expansions.

In any case, the Trump administration withdrew the proposed safety limits in 2019, and the mine has been fast-tracked through the environmental review process, led by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Yet state and federal experts have repeatedly critiqued the adequacy of the environmental review. The chair of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure recently called for a delay in the release of the Final Environmental Impact Statement due to the Corp’s failure to properly consult with tribes.

Then in late August, two major events: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reversed its July go-ahead and gave mine operators 90 days to explain how they would offset “unavoidable adverse impacts” to more than 3,200 acres of wetlands.  Reuters reports that the next day, shares in the company owning the mine fell by 25% as investors weighed in.  In addition, Alaska’s two Republican Senators came out against the mine. 

The final environmental review predicts a mind-boggling variety of impacts to the Bristol Bay watershed. One example: permanent damage to over 100 miles of rivers and streams and 2,000 acres of wetlands.  I can’t think of any other mine in North America—and perhaps the world—that would have such a devastating effect on clean water.

The Bristol Bay salmon fishery is a renewable resource; the legacy of the Pebble Mine promises perpetual pollution.

The ore will likely be shipped overseas to Asia, while the lasting impacts stay in Bristol Bay. In contrast, if the pristine water and wild salmon habitat of the watershed gain protection, the fishery can continue to feed our nation and power our economy forever.  

It’s hard to imagine a more irresponsible mining project than the Pebble Mine. The silver lining: There’s still time for Congress to act before a permit to mine is issued this fall, and for mine opponents to be heard, loud and clear. This mine must be stopped.

The post A Goldmine by a Salmon Fishery is a Terrible Idea appeared first on Writers On The Range.