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Superfund

The emerging regional consensus should prompt swift federal action

In the five months since the Gold King Mine bulkhead ruptured, sending 3 million gallons of metal-laden water into Cement Creek, the Animas and San Juan rivers, the affected communities have coalesced – however loosely – to seek a permanent remedy to the long-simmering problem of mine drainage. Given that the situation has evaded a solution for decades, the progress since August has come at lightning speed. With votes in Silverton and La Plata County scheduled for this week, the regional voice seeking a federal Superfund designation is unified and amplifying. The Environmental Protection Agency should respond in kind.

Durango City Council voted unanimously for a resolution supporting listing the mines above Silverton on the EPA’s national priority list under Superfund, which is shorthand for the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980. Both the town of Silverton and San Juan County have indicated support for the listing – the first step in securing federal resources for a comprehensive cleanup – as has La Plata County. Each of these jurisdictions are expected to take up resolutions of support this week, sending the matter to Gov. John Hickenlooper to sign off on a request for federal action.

The consensus is a major and significant regional response to the August disaster that painted a stark picture of the enduring water quality problem wrought by mining activity and geology in the Silverton caldera. While political and economic concerns have kept a comprehensive solution at bay for decades, the Gold King spill has served to illustrate the regional implications of the remote alpine mine complex. The vast fallout that the spill unfurled – environmental, economic and political – brought into focus just how interdependent the region is, and just how critical it is to find a long-term fix to the problem. Given the complexity and limitations of outdated mining and liability laws, Superfund is the best and most expedient answer to this enduring threat.

Once the official request is made – with state and local support – the question will then become one of expediency. That is a conversation directly tied to available resources, which will surely influence the speed at which any permanent water treatment facility will arrive. The consensus that is building around a Superfund listing will likely serve to nudge that process along, should the mining area above Silverton receive the federal designation, but it will hardly be swift regardless. The process requires a series of assessments, feasibility studies and construction itself – all of which will carry logistical, financial, administrative and political challenges of their own – as will maintenance of the clean-up facility.

The growing chorus seeking federal assistance with this regional problem is a critical component in a complex problem that will, even under the best case scenario, require patience and perseverance to fully solve. That should not serve to discourage optimism that a solution is within reach, but rather to remind that achieving this critical goal depends on enduring collaboration like that rallied since the Gold King spill. Doing so will yield the best results for the region.



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