| 1/29/2009 9:17:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article | EPA reconsiders Superfund remedy
By Ann E. Wibbenmeyer - Leadville Herald
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency personnel decided Jan. 15 in Denver to reconsider the remedy for unit six of the California Gulch Superfund Site in Lake County.
The meeting included representatives of the Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and Lake County Commissioners.
The chosen remedy for unit 6 is reported in the record of decision - a legal document the EPA published Sept. 25, 2003.
Personnel with the agency have since determined the remedy isn't sustainable and needs to be modified, Jennifer Lane of the agency reported.
The decision upset Lake County Commissioner Carl Schaefer who said, "It will prolong an already long process."
He said he's interested in moving ahead.
Lake County Commission chairman Ken Olsen expressed frustration and commented, "(The agency) does what they do, and that's what they do. The community has been through this before."
Commissioner Mike Bordogna said, "We have an opportunity to shape what parts of the east side of our town will look like."
He said the agency, bureau and state public health earlier mentioned rebuilding miners' cabins, refurbishing fallen head frames and additions to the Mineral Belt Trail as things that could come from the process.
Bordogna said if millions of dollars are to be spent in the area, bigger tourist attractions could be built than mine waste piles.
Unit 6, about 3.4 square miles, is among 12 in the California Gulch Superfund site east of Leadville. It includes Stray Horse Gulch and upper and lower portions of Evans Gulch.
The remedy has acid mine-drainage water flowing through Leadville Mine Drainage Tunnel to be treated by the Bureau of Reclamation. It was that tunnel in which a blockage led Lake County Commissioners to declare the state of emergency last year.
"We learned a lot ... with the emergency of the Leadville Mine Drainage Tunnel," Lane said.
One possible remedy, discussed but not chosen, in the record of decision was consolidating and capping certain mine-waste piles, such as those at the Makado, RAM, Pyranees and Greenback mines.
It was an unpopular alternative when the record of decision was published. Public comment then is part of the document.
"It also has the unfavorable effect of greatly altering the historic aspect of the mining district," Bob Elder said in original Unit 6 comments about the consolidating and capping alternative.
"Historic landscape is highly prized not only by local citizens, but by visitors touring Lake County," he said.
Regarding the present, Lane said, "We are between a rock and a hard place."
She said the agency spent six years trying to initiate the remedy, and competency of the tunnel has been questioned. The solution must deal with the source of contamination to prevent it.
The agency wants to work with the community to create a design to preserve the history as a remedy for Unit 6, Lane said.
Amending the record of decision involves a public-comment period, but she said other public meetings will be held before a formal process is started.
Bordogna and Schaefer mentioned educating the public about what a Superfund site is and what it means to live in one. It should be done, Bordogna said, before a citizens' advisory panel is formed for the issue.
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