This week the EPA declared the mine a Superfund priority, along with dozens of other nearby sites (collectively dubbed the Bonita Peak Mining District, for purposes of the Superfund application) paving the way for the resources to do long-needed remediation.
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The EPA estimated that the Gold King blowout sent 880,000 pounds of metals into the Animas River in Colorado, including arsenic, cadmium, copper, lead, mercury, nickel and zinc.
Utilities and farmers temporarily stopped drawing water from the rivers for drinking and irrigation.
“The BLM agrees with both EPA and the State that the site warrants attention”, said John Ruhs, Bureau of Land Management Nevada State Director.
In April 2016, EPA proposed to add Argonaut Mine to the Superfund list, with the state’s support. The Superfund site designation includes 35 mines, seven tunnels, four tailings sites and two additional study areas. The Animas feeds several other Southwestern rivers, including the San Juan and, ultimately, the Colorado. Silverton and surrounding San Juan County got behind the Superfund listing.
Officials told CPR that the cleanup will cost millions of dollars and take years or even decades. A closed aluminum plant in Montana, which contaminated the Flathead River with cyanide and other manufacturing byproducts, has also been listed. In Dutchess County, New York, a portion of Wappinger Creek was designated for cleanup as a result of industrial waste.
In Puerto Rico, groundwater contamination in the town of Dorado has impacted drinking water for 67,000 people with the industrial solvents tetrachloroethylene and trichloroethylene, which can have serious health impacts including damage to the liver and increasing the risk of cancer, states the EPA.
The site encompassing 3,400 acres was sold a few more times over the years and was last owned by Arimetco, which went bankrupt in 1997 and abandoned the mine in 2000. It was chosen because studies have found elevated levels of unsafe chemicals in the ground water at the site. Now that the mine has been formally added to the list, EPA will begin a comprehensive investigation at the site, and will seek public input prior to selecting a cleanup plan.
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The groundwater there is contaminated with volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, which can be found in dry-cleaning chemicals.
