Summitville clean-up costs soar

Vancouver — In 1870 when James Wightman made the first placer gold discovery in the Summitville district of Colorado, one can assume that the last thing on his mind was environmental clean-up costs. But some 130 years later state and federal regulators have inked a final agreement that pegs the remediation costs for the Summitville mine at US$240 million.

The sum is staggering when compared to the US$170 Wightman and his partners took home that first year. By 1883, Summitville was the third largest gold producing district in the state. More than a century later, in 1986, Robert Friedland-led Galactic Resources opened the Summitville mine. After seven years of operations and millions of dollars spent attempting to meet unattainable water quality standards, particularly for silver, the mine closed, and subsequently Galactic filed for bankruptcy, forcing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to step in and begin the lengthy and expensive remediation process.

Acid-mine drainage is cited as the major culprit in the environmental degradation of the area. Cyanide-bearing solutions began to leak from the heap-leach pad used during mining into an under drain system, where they mixed with acid ground waters from old waste dumps.

“We have done everything we can,” says Victor Ketellapper of the EPA. “But if we don’t treat the water, we won’t meet the quality standards down-stream.”

The cost of the latest program is slated at US$75 million and includes the construction of a new water treatment plant, which will be used indefinitely.

The Summitville mine is being blamed for the sudden disappearance of fish from Terrace Reservoir (located 17 miles downstream) in 1990, increased levels of heavy metals in San Luis Valley soils irrigated with Alamosa River water, and possible increased corrosion rates in metal irrigation structures handling Alamosa River water.

Under EPA Superfund authority, the agency immediately began to treat the heap-leach and acid waters with chemicals to bring the water level down in the heap-leach pond. In late May 1994, the clean-up operation hit the EPA National Priorities List, and the estimated cost of the total cleanup was put at US$100-to-120 million.

Earlier this year, having already spent US$155 million since taking over the mine site, the EPA tried to recoup these costs solely from Friedland. The mining financier and the Colorado governments battled for four and a half years over the legal liability. At the end of the day, Friedland agreed to make payments totaling US$27.75 million over 10 years. Friedland admitted no responsibility for the disaster and the U.S. will pay Friedland US$1.25 million in costs and legal fees that arose from a 1996 attempt to seize US$152 million in Canadian assets to cover costs of the cleanup. In turn, Friedland agreed to drop his suit against the U.S. government for damages arising out of the Canadian court action.

Under the final agreement, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and the EPA set the guidelines and committed funds for the final stages of the clean-up.