The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
U.S. Energy has obligation to environmental and human health
By Adam Broderick
The Gold King mine near Silverton leaked nearly three million gallons of toxic water into the Animas River two weeks ago, and sparked conversations regarding how to prevent something similar from happening elsewhere across the state.
On Tuesday, August 18, Gunnison County Commissioners and the Crested Butte Town Council agreed to send a joint letter to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment requesting that the Water Quality Control Division (WQCD) make it possible once again to ensure that area residents and visitors remain safe in the potential event that operations cease at the Water Treatment Plant west of Crested Butte on Mt. Emmons at Coal Creek.
Coal Creek supplies Crested Butte with drinking water and also has agricultural and recreational uses. Drainage from abandoned mines on Mt. Emmons flows into Elk Creek, then into Coal Creek, then through town.
According to the letter, the environmental and human health consequences of any release of untreated mine drainage are beyond our local governments’ response capacity. And since U.S. Energy, the corporation that owns the molybdenum mining rights on Mt. Emmons and is legally obligated to operate the plant, recently released an unhealthy financial report (showing an $11.4 million decrease during the first half of 2015 compared to the first half of 2014), Gunnison County and the town of Crested Butte decided the best bet would be to ask the state to strongly oversee the waste water treatment plant permits issued to U.S. Energy.
The intention is for the WQCD to reopen a permit renewal process for the mine’s discharge permit, which regulates the water treatment plant. As part of that process, WQCD would impose new permit conditions requiring U.S. Energy to satisfy financial and ethical responsibilities should the company no longer be capable of complying with its discharge treatment requirements.
County attorney David Baumgarten explained that a number of years ago the county, together with the town of Crested Butte, requested from the WQCD that there be an addition to the discharge permit.
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“We asked for financial security should there be a lapse in operation. The state said they did not have the authority to do so at the time. That conversation has since been highlighted by what has happened in other locations in Colorado with mine spillage,” Baumgarten said.
According to the letter to WQCD, the financial condition is especially alarming because the treatment plant uses outdated technology and has now exceeded its expected life by almost 20 years.
“We respectfully request that the WQCD reopen the permit renewal process… and also work with other state and federal agencies to impose financial requirements or take other actions to protect the public against the environmental and human health catastrophe that would ensue if U.S. Energy failed to operate the water treatment plant,” the letter read.
“Waiting until the problem rises to the level of CERCLA [the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980] enforcement action is an untenable alternative because of the environmental and human health consequences that would precede such an action,” the letter continued.
Baumgarten told the News that state officials responded promptly and diligently to the county’s most recent mine-related request so he trusts they will be equally responsive to this request. “Our trust is that – while the current request by us will have to be discussed internally by the state over a period of time – the state officials will be equally responsive,” he said. Baumgarten believes an internal conversation will begin immediately.
