Stephen L. Johnson, the EPA's top administrator, was howling with the residents of Clear Creek County yesterday, according to the Rocky Mountain News. From the article, "With hundreds of abandoned mines delivering untold tonnages of fish-killing copper, cadmium and zinc into Colorado's mountain streams daily, one might think that greens, government and corporate do-gooders would be climbing over one another to clean up the mess. Not so. A hitch in the nation's tangle of environmental laws can leave even the well-intentioned liable for the very pollution they are trying to eradicate, a disincentive to detoxify old hard-rock mines that has scared off even Colorado's own public health department. In the latest effort to call attention to this legal morass, the Environmental Protection Agency's top administrator, Stephen L. Johnson, paid a visit to the Clear Creek mining region west of Denver on Thursday. He called on Congress to pass a so-called 'Good Samaritan' law (SB1848) that would allow cleanups of old mine sites without the fear of lawsuits from government or third parties...
"Congress has been batting around similar proposals for more than a decade. But the bills get held back by worries that mining companies would use a new law to reopen mines, or that work would be done poorly, perhaps even increasing pollution, with no one accountable. But now, greens and government officials sense an opportunity. With President Bush backing a version of the Good Samaritan bill, bipartisan support in Congress for the concept and, in Johnson, an EPA administrator who has made the matter a priority, hope abounds that this might be the year...
"'Congress will fix it when they get the word we're at the tipping point,' Ed Rapp, of the Clear Creek Watershed Foundation, told a gathering of about 50 officials, environmentalists and academics who met at the Idaho Springs Visitors Center before accompanying Johnson to a press event at the McClelland Mine near Dumont. Several state agencies and private entities, including Coors Brewing Co., joined forces in the 1990s to clean up part of the McClelland site, on the banks of Clear Creek. Workers capped, graded and replanted the site. They also set their sights on the mine tunnel itself, where polluted waters carry some 10 pounds of metals a day into Clear Creek. Final designs and funds were in place, but the state ended up pulling back, fearful of legal language in the Clean Water Act and other laws that could leave it and other parties at risk of financial exposure if someone decided to sue over any pollution still leaching from the site. Colorado and the West is dotted with sites just like McClelland, as many as 500,000, according to some estimates. The largest polluting mines, places such as Summitville in south-central Colorado, benefit from federal Superfund laws. But it's the countless smaller sites, not big enough to fall under Superfund, that give regulators and environmentalists fits.
"Colorado's congressional delegation has long voiced support for Good Samaritan legislation, including Rep. Mark Udall of the 2nd district. U.S. Sens. Ken Salazar and Wayne Allard are sponsoring a new version of the bill this year. Rep. Bob Beauprez, of Colorado's 7th Congressional District and the Republican candidate for governor, attended Thursday's gathering and voiced his support for Good Samaritan legislation."
More coverage of the issue, from the Summit Daily News. They write, "At issue is the pollution-laden water that frequently trickles from orphaned mines, including numerous sites in Summit County. Often called acid mine drainage, the water can be heavily tainted with toxic heavy metals, in some cases at levels that are harmful to human health, and more frequently in concentrations toxic to aquatic life. That includes streams in Summit County like the Snake River, parts of which are listed as impaired under the Clean Water Act. Concentrations of metals, primarily zinc, exceed state standards set to protect aquatic life in the Snake. While a Snake River cleanup has already been targeted by several groups, passage of a good samaritan law would ease the effort immensely, said Carol Russell, of the EPA's mining program. The geographic scope of the problem is staggering, said Elizabeth Russell, of Trout Unlimited, the cold water fisheries conservation group that has taken a lead role in mine cleanup efforts recently. Russell, recently hired to focus on the Snake River cleanup in Summit County, said 40 percent of all headwaters streams in the West are impacted to some degree by acid mine drainage...
"As now written, federal environmental rules include strict liability provisions that assign perpetual responsibility for cleanups to anyone tackling remediation at abandoned mine sites. Johnson said that, while there have been various good samaritan proposals floating around for years, the latest version includes some compromise language that could pass muster in Congress. Among the issues that have tangled up the legislation in the past are the extent of involvement by the mining industry, for example whether mining companies should be allowed to re-mine cleanup areas. Public involvement has also been a question mark...
"Republican Congressman and gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez said abandoned mine remediation has been hampered by a lack of common sense, and promised to work with Democratic Rep. Mark Udall to get a good samaritan measure passed this year."
Category: Colorado Water
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