The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Looking for thorough plan to address pollutants
The portion of Coal Creek running through Crested Butte will be reclassified by the state as a water source and mandated to meet drinking water standards. That will mean stricter standards will be required for treatment of the water at the U.S. Energy water treatment plant to meet lower levels of chemicals such as arsenic. As part of the decision, the state also wants U.S. Energy to provide a thorough plan to determine where pollutants like cadmium, copper and zinc are originating on Mt. Emmons and flowing into Coal Creek and how to address the problem.
The Colorado Water Quality Control Commission voted September 11 to impose the stricter standards despite an argument from U.S. Energy that nearby domestic wells were pumping water from the Slate River instead of Coal Creek.
“Frankly, I don’t even recognize my town in the diagrams presented to you from U.S. Energy,” said High Country Citizen’s Alliance (HCCA) water director Jennifer Bock in reference to the claim that the wells were pumping water from the Slate River.
The portion of the creek affected by the decision starts at just below the town’s water supply intake to the confluence with the Slate River.
By voting to put stricter regulations on that portion of Coal Creek, the commission voted in agreement with positions advocated by HCCA, Gunnison County, the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District, and the Gunnison County Stockgrowers.
The segment of Coal Creek is out of compliance with state water quality standards, and has been since temporary modifications were first put in place in the early 1990s. Bock explained that temporary modifications are put in place when a discharger releasing pollutants into a water body cannot meet quality standards and needs more time to assess the situation.
“The legal word in the regulations is uncertainty, so if there’s uncertainty about why there’s a pollution problem, it does give the discharger time to resolve it,” Bock said. In this case, U.S. Energy Corp. was requesting an extension of the temporary modifications and more lenient standards on cadmium, zinc and copper.
Initially, U.S. Energy proposed loosening the temporary modifications in addition to extending them. Yet the current temporary standards are already significantly above state standards: of 2.3 micrograms per liter for cadmium as opposed to the more typical range of .15 to 1.2 depending on water hardness, and 667 micrograms per liter for zinc. State standards for zinc are typically between 34 and 428 micrograms per liter, again depending on the hardness of the water.
After some back and forth, U.S. Energy instead proposed a slight tightening of the temporary modifications to 2.1 micrograms per liter for cadmium and 440 for zinc. In HCCA’s eyes, that amounts to the status quo, but that’s acceptable for the time being if steps are taken to understand where that pollution is coming from.
In addition to standards for drinking water, the commission granted U.S. Energy’s request for temporary modifications on standards for copper, cadmium and zinc. As part of the decision the Water Quality Control Commission is asking U.S. Energy to develop a comprehensive study on metal loading from Mt. Emmons, which will be the subject of another hearing on December 10 in Denver.
“The commission members were explicit in their appreciation of the time, hard work, and flexibility that our community demonstrated in creating and presenting a consensus position to protect public health and safety,” said David Baumgarten, Gunnison County attorney.
One of the main things the proponents of the stricter regulations wanted was an in-depth study of the pollution sources. “After 20 years, the Water Quality Division has decided it wants some answers,” Bock said. “We haven’t seen anything in-depth from U.S. Energy so hopefully they will now take a thorough look at the groundwater on the mountain.
“This issue has been going on for a long time,” Bock continued. “If we know where the pollutants are coming from, and how best to treat it, that benefits everyone. It will give us more information going forward. In the long run, we want improvements in the levels of all heavy metals in Coal Creek.”
Bock expects U.S. Energy to submit a draft plan before December. Then the commission will look at and vote on the draft at its December 10 meeting.
Baumgarten said the county is applying to have “party status” for that December 10 hearing.
“At the last hearing, what the water commissioners said was [U.S. Energy] did not address the underlying question of how the mine could be affecting Coal Creek,” said Baumgarten. “Therefore they are going to have a further hearing where the mine has to propose what their plan is to eliminate the need for temporary modifications,” he explained to the county commissioners on Tuesday, September 18.
“One of those needs may be that it’s not the mine’s fault. It may be that the iron fen or something else is causing the minerals to exceed those modifications,” Baumgarten continued, noting that even though the high concentration of heavy metals might not be the mine’s fault, responsibility still fell to U.S. Energy to conduct that study. “The study was to have been prepared for the commission last week. It was not. Since there was another rule-making scheduled for December 10, this one was morphed onto that.”
According to a HCCA press release, the joint parties were also pleased with the commission’s September 11 decision to accept the National Parks Service’s proposal to designate several tributaries on the north side of Blue Mesa as “Outstanding Resource Waters.” The designation recognizes that the streams possess outstanding water quality, and empowers the commission to protect such quality. The streams at issue have maintained high quality in harmony with historical land uses, including livestock grazing. The National Park Service was careful to collect years of data and reach out to local landowners, grazing permittees, and other stakeholders. Such efforts led the joint parties to support the Park Service proposal.
U.S. Energy did not return calls from the Crested Butte News regarding the decision.
