| 6/30/2009 11:31:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article |
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| Nothing grows on these untreated tailings which ooze black and orange water in the spring, according to owners Jack and Peggy Hill. |
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Kerber Creek Restoration
Project Partners
• Trout Unlimited
• Bureau of Land Management
• U.S. Forest Service
• National Resource Conservation Service
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
• 40 private landowners
• Western Hardrock Watershed Team
• Saguache Methodist AmeriCorps
• AmeriCorps Vista
• Rio Grande Division 3 Water Success
• Environmental Protection Agency
• Colorado Watershed Assembly
• Department of Reclamation, Mining and Safety
• Office of Surface Mining
• Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment
• Colorado Division of Wildlife
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Volunteers repair mine damage to Kerber Creek
By Joe Stone - Special to the Mountain Mail
About 20 people installed nearly a mile of wattles in Kerber Creek west of Villa Grove in the San Luis Valley Saturday as continuing damage repair caused by upstream mining.
Volunteers from Collegiate Peaks Anglers chapter of Trout Unlimited worked with various agency employees and local land owners to repair damage that began at least 130 years ago in the Bonanza Mining District.
Wattles, long, cylindrical straw bales, help control erosion. The next phase will focus on transforming 40 acres of sterile mine tailings into healthy wetland and riparian habitat.
The process, phytostabilization, uses plants to bind toxic metals to soil, producing fewer toxic compounds. Plant cover reduces spread of toxins by wind and water, but getting plants to grow along Kerber Creek is no small feat.
"Tailings on this part of the creek come from sulfide ore," Dr. Carl Ford, Bureau of Land Management toxicologist, said. "I've recorded pH levels as low as three. That's 10,000 times more acid than neutral."
For comparison, he said, pure water is neutral.
"Sulfuric acid causes yellowing you see in the plants. Later in the summer, when it gets drier, they burn up," BLM natural resources specialist Steve Sanchez, said, pointing to ailing rushes near a tailing pile.
"We also have tens of thousands of parts per million of zinc contamination and zinc is tough on plants," Ford added.
The remedy, Sanchez said, is to neutralize acidity with lime and limestone, then add organic material.
"We work the lime and limestone into tailings to a depth of 18-inches," Sanchez said, "then we work in organics 4-6 inches."
In this case, organic material is potato compost from a local farmer. After soil mellows about a month, workers apply seed and straw mulch, allowing plants to contain zinc.
Sanchez pointed out tailing piles on land a few miles upstream owned by Jack and Peggy Hill. Treated in a similar manner last year, the tailings are covered with green grasses and annuals.
"It was so ugly," Peggy Hill said. "It's nice to see it looking like it does. We're very happy."
Jack Hill agreed, "It was nothing but tailings. We couldn't even get weeds to grow. Now there's lots of elk sign ... and we've seen improvement in the stream."
The Hills noticed return of brook trout which migrated downstream from unpolluted tributaries. The fish component interests Elizabeth Russell, Trout Unlimited mine restoration coordinator.
"We're here because of the fishery component," Russell said.
Her job with Trout Unlimited is specifically to work on mining-related projects.
"Doing mine restoration, I mostly work on dead streams," she said, "so it's great to work on a project like this."
Fishery restoration will begin next year at the site, adjacent to land owned by Jeff Dragos and Wendell Hutchinson, a fourth-generation rancher and veterinarian in Poncha Springs.
Federal money for work on private land is authorized by the Wyden Amendment (Public Law 109-54, Sect. 434) allowing federal agencies to enter agreements benefiting resources within watersheds on federal land.
Because of partnerships involving federal agencies, conservation groups and landowners, Kerber Creek Restoration Project received $1.2 million for 2009.
Trout Unlimited officials secured more than $400,000 for the project and they provide much of the volunteer labor. National Resources Conservation Service provided more than $300,000 in Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program money and engineering services.
Conservation service personnel will lead fishery restoration work next year.
"We'll be doing some rechanneling work to slow stream velocity, help restore habitat and stop erosion," Larry McBride, conservation service district conservationist, said.
Need for the project pre-dates the 1880s with discovery of rich gold and silver veins in Bonanza Mining District. Within a few years, tainted runoff began affecting downstream ranchers.
Mine workers eventually installed tailing dams, but after the last Bonanza boom in the 1930s, dams began failing and mine tailings spread miles downstream, turning the creek orange.
Jack Ashley has lived on Kerber Creek most of his life - long enough to watch "when the tailings busted loose and come down the crick."
He, too, reported seeing fish in the creek this year and said his granddaughter wanted to mount a 14-inch trout because it was the first fish she'd ever caught from Kerber Creek.
The creek still ran orange in 1993 when ASARCO, a mining company, joined with the BLM, U.S. Forest Service and Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to begin restoration work averting Superfund designation.
That project cost about $10 million for mine reclamation and stream restoration, addressing the most polluted areas and removing more than 100,000 cubic yards of tailings from the upper Kerber Creek watershed.
After ASARCO work ended, action along Kerber Creek simmered until 2004 when BLM and U.S. Forest Service personnel initiated cleanup scheduled to continue through 2012.
Officials said that effort will likely result in Kerber Creek being the first waterway removed from the list of impaired water in Colorado.
Sanchez stressed importance of cooperation among stakeholders. He said he drank a lot of coffee while meeting with property owners to encourage their participation.
Property owners laude work and persistence by Sanchez and said he persuaded about 65 percent of property owners to participate.
The other 35 percent, Sanchez said, are absentee owners who rarely - if ever - visit their land.
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