Case to guarantee operation of water treatment plant continues

“The judge seemed interested”

Local clean water advocates are still pushing to make the state’s Water Quality Control Division reconsider a permit requirement to ensure that a wastewater treatment facility on Mt. Emmons continues to run into the future.

Gunnison County, the town of Crested Butte and High Country Citizens’ Alliance (HCCA) have teamed up to take on the Division and the mining company, U.S. Energy, which holds a permit to operate the plant. The goal is to get some financial guarantee, like a bond, that could be used to operate the plant if U.S. Energy ever stopped paying the plant operator or the plant was left unattended for another reason.
The more than 30-year-old plant sits on the flanks of Mt. Emmons and treats wastewater and surface water that comes from the Lucky Jack Mine. The treated water is discharged into Coal Creek, which serves as the only source of water for the town of Crested Butte.
At a hearing in May, administrative law judge Robert Spencer gave the proponents their first victory, deciding that the division does have the implied authority to require a financial guarantee.
Their next step was a hearing Friday, October 2, when the proponents set out to prove the facts of the case and show that the situation surrounding the treatment plant on Mt. Emmons was unique among permitted treatment plants.
“We were able to demonstrate that this site is on an inactive mine, that the site is inside the watershed for the town of Crested Butte and Gunnison County and that the site treats water that contains cadmium, lead, iron and all kinds of nasty things,” county attorney David Baumgarten told the Gunnison Board of County Commissioners at a regular meeting on Tuesday, October 6.
He also said they were able to prove that the point of intake for the town’s water supply is up-gradient from the plant’s discharge point, but that if something were to block that trench the water would flow into the area above the intake and possibly contaminate the town’s water.
Friday’s hearing in Denver took the entire eight-hour day and still did not reach a conclusion. Attorneys for both sides will be able to make their closing arguments at another hearing on October 9.
Crested Butte Town Attorney John Belkin says he and the other members of his team are “cautiously optimistic” that the judge will rule in their favor and that if he did, and sent it back to the Division’s rule-making commission, it would be a “noteworthy accomplishment.”
“The judge seemed interested,” Belkin says. “If he rules in our favor, we’re going to ask for some sort of financial assurance. We would be happy if the judge sends it to the commission stating that the commission needs to establish rules for how to require financial assurances.”
Such a move by the judge could make it possible for similarly situated municipalities to get the same assurance that nearby wastewater treatment plants will continue to operate, regardless of peripheral circumstances.
Belkin says he doesn’t anticipate the judge’s ruling to come down in the days following Friday’s closing arguments, but he does expect it in the weeks that follow.
“The community could get the much-needed and reasonable assurances that the water running from the mine won’t run orange through town again,” Belkin says.