Environmental Hazards of Abandoned Mines

Senate Floor Statement of Senator Boxer
Statement By U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer Before The Environment And Public Works Committee Regarding The Abandoned Mine Lands Liability Waiver


Wednesday, June 14, 2006



Mr. Chairman, I cannot stress enough how critical it is that we address the threat of toxic waste sites in this Committee, particularly the threat these sites pose to the health of families, including children in nearby communities. I hope we can have a series of hearings on environmental cleanup issues that go beyond the issue for today’s hearing. I also appreciate your agreement to allow a Superfund oversight hearing in the Superfund Subcommittee tomorrow. Information we have gathered on the current status of toxic sites around the country makes it clear – the threat posed by these sites merits our immediate attention.
I am pleased that the EPA Administrator is here today, and, as you might imagine, I have a few questions for Administrator Johnson on EPA’s approach to cleanup programs, including abandoned mine cleanup.

It is worth noting that the Administrator is testifying today in support of efforts to roll back environmental laws and standards that would provide a direct financial benefit to industry. The enthusiasm shown by this Administration for waivers and rollbacks of environmental laws that protect public health is striking. Proposals to streamline environmental cleanup by undermining standards is the wrong approach and raises the risk to communities that things will get worse, not better.

Abandoned mine sites pose a serious threat to water resources. Mine wastes frequently contain high levels of heavy metals, including mercury and arsenic. Cyanide and other hazardous chemicals are used in mine operations. In California, it is estimated there are 47,000 abandoned mines.

If mishandled, well-intentioned efforts can have disastrous results. In fact, in my home state we have a clear example of a well-intentioned cleanup effort gone wrong. I will briefly describe that experience to highlight why environmental rollbacks are the wrong path to take when it comes to cleaning up abandoned mine sites.

The experience at the Penn Mine in Calaveras County, California was well-intentioned but poorly executed and is instructive. This mine site has been used to justify the so-called “Good Samaritan” initiatives because it involved litigation and significant cleanup costs. As you will see, the limited regulatory review and poor engineering at this site made a bad situation dramatically worse. Let me read from a letter from a long list of groups opposing the “Good Samaritan legislation” and what they have to say about the lessons of Penn Mine:

“At Penn Mine, the waiving of environmental review coupled with an egregious lack of understanding of complex geochemical and hydro-geological processes at the site led to exacerbated water quality problems...accelerat[ing] the formation of acid mine drainage by up to one million times.” A prominent geochemist testified that “the facility could not have been better designed had its intention been maximum production of toxic acid mine drainage.” There is a very long list of groups on this letter opposing the rollback legislation, including both S. 1848 as well as S. 2780 and with good reason (See letter for groups attached).

There is a much better way to approach this issue. First, EPA does in fact have significant administrative authority and could streamline the cleanup process with model orders under Superfund. These orders could contain appropriate liability relief, could be limited in scope and could maintain environmental standards. EPA has some experience with this approach and with effort could do more.

I appreciate well-intentioned efforts to allow so-called “Good Samaritan” cleanups to proceed more efficiently. However, environmental rollbacks are not the answer. The Good Samaritan proposals do not even contain the basic protections of the Brownfields law and raise the risk that things will get worse, not better. There is another way that does not involve rollbacks or waivers, or giveaways to industry. We also cannot afford to lose sight of one of the key parts to any solution to the toxic waste problem. Superfund needs to be funded and polluters must once again pay into that fund. The need for cleanup of abandoned mine lands dwarfs any Good Samaritan Initiative. This is a large complex problem and the Good Samaritan proposals are a drop in the bucket. Worse if they go wrong.

I decided to explore on this issue, but just in my locale. Here's a link to a current newsletter of the BLM California. I didn't get very far at the EPA site, but this came up when I did a search on Google (environmental risks abandoned mines san bernardino county ca).
http://www.blm.gov/ca/news/newsbytes/2006/228.html

From this site above, the Press Enterprise story:
BLM says arsenic of concern

12:24 AM PDT on Wednesday, April 26, 2006
By DAVID DANELSKI
The Press-Enterprise


the dangers

Arsenic is a poisonous, naturally occurring element, often left over when metals are extracted from ore.

Airborne exposure can irritate the throat and lungs.

Ingesting it can cause nausea, decrease blood-cell production, damage blood vessels, cause irregular heartbeats and death.

Long-term exposure can cause cancer.




High levels of arsenic left over from a hundred years of mining near the northwest corner of San Bernardino County has federal officials worried about the potential health risk to residents and off-roaders.

Soil samples in recent months showed "extremely" high arsenic concentrations near Red Mountain, Johannesburg and Randsburg, desert towns rooted in the area's gold and silver industry.

About 500 people live in the remote communities, and the territory is an increasingly popular off-road recreation spot.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is considering closing dirt roads where motorcyclists and other off-roaders kick up potentially hazardous dust. People could be exposed by breathing the dust or by skin contact.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has asked the bureau to contain or clean up the arsenic from processed gold and silver ore, known as mine tailings.

The waste piles are visible throughout the area.


David Danelski / The Press-Enterprise

Arsenic has been detected in soil near the long defunct Kelly Mine in Red Mountain and at the Yellow Aster Mine, above, in Randsburg, which ceased digging operations in 2003. The BLM is considering closing dirt roads where off-roaders kick up potentially hazardous dust.

Bureau officials cautioned that they don't yet know the extent of the problem. But investigating the contamination and assessing potential health risks are high priorities, said Nancy Dean, a top BLM environmental official in Washington, D.C.

Bureau officials plan to conduct air-quality tests in the area, BLM spokeswoman Jan Bedrosian said.

Possible remedies, expected to be announced next month, include fencing contaminated areas, containing polluted runoff water and closing certain dirt roads and trails now used by motorcyclists and other off-roaders, Bedrosian said.

The towns' drinking water is not a concern because it is piped from wells more than six miles from the mines.

Some residents said they are skeptical about the health risks

"I've lived here all my life, and I'm still here," said Bernadette Hyles, 54, as she tended bar at a Randsburg saloon. "I've never heard of anyone getting ill."

Randy Banis, a four-wheel-drive enthusiast from the Palmdale area, said the arsenic problem needs to be investigated and that people shouldn't drive through toxic material.

But Banis worries that the BLM will cut off access to more public land than necessary.

"Localized solutions should address each site, so you don't have an overreaction," said Banis, a member of Friends of Jawbone, a group that promotes responsible off-roading on public lands.

Off-roaders already have been barred from large stretches of public land where the government is trying to protect rare species, including the desert tortoise, Banis said.

Such closures have made the Red Mountain area more popular with off-roaders, BLM officials and residents said.

Dean, the BLM's division chief of engineering and environmental services, last week visited the Kelly Mine near Red Mountain, where the bureau discovered arsenic in tailings samples gathered in December.

The silver mine has been abandoned since the 1940s, said John Key, BLM hazardous-materials-program leader for California.

The bureau estimates the site could contain about 100 tons of arsenic.

Bureau officials later found even higher arsenic concentrations in dirt samples taken from Fiddler Gulch, just outside the Yellow Aster Mine in Randsburg.

That mining operation has released more than 1,000 tons of arsenic into the environment, according to BLM estimates. Soil samples contained concentrations averaging 5,000 parts per million.

The federal drinking-water standard for arsenic is .01 parts per million.

Gold has been mined at the Yellow Aster since the 1890s, but digging operations and extraction processes stopped in 2003 and 2004, said Joe Danni, a spokesman for Glamis Gold Inc., which owns the mine.

The mine produced about1 million ounces of gold.

Danni said tailings in Fiddler Gulch stem from mining that occurred long before Glamis acquired the mine in the mid-1980s.

However, Glamis is open to helping the bureau clean up arsenic, he said.

"If we can, we'll certainly help," Danni said by telephone from the company's Reno offices.

Such cleanups can be expensive, the BLM's Dean said.

At other mines, the process has involved moving the tailings to specially designed repositories that contain the toxic materials and keep them from leaching into groundwater or creeks.

A recent cleanup of arsenic-, lead- and mercury-tainted tailings from a gold mine that was polluting creek water in Manning Canyon, Utah, cost about $6.8 million, the bureau said.

The agency has proposed a $1.8 million cleanup to contain arsenic at the defunct Saginaw and Palo Verde mines about 10 miles southwest of Tucson, Ariz., where gold, silver and zinc was last mined more than 50 years ago.

To protect the public from lead and arsenic, the bureau closed and fenced 290 acres in the mine area, BLM spokeswoman Lorraine Buck said.

In a Randsburg tavern, contractor Dave Adams Sr. sipped a beer and said he didn't want to see large sections of nearby public lands closed because of the arsenic.

"We're not anti-government people," Adams said. "But we do get sick and tired of the government coming in and saying what's best for us."

Reach David Danelski at (951) 368-9471 or ddanelski@PE.com

BLM related sites:
http://www.blm.gov/ca/pa/aml/

http://www.blm.gov/aml/index2.htm