DENVER – State lawmakers on Thursday advanced a measure that would urge Congress to pass so-called “Good Samaritan” legislation.

The Senate Agriculture, Natural Resources and Energy Committee backed Senate Joint Memorial 1 unanimously. It now heads to the full Senate for consideration.

The measure calls on Congress to pass legislation that would allow government and private entities to restore toxic inactive mines, without facing liability concerns.

While the memorial is largely symbolic – as the Legislature can’t force the hand of Congress – lawmakers hope to send a strong message.

“This was stimulated in part, but not solely, because of what happened on the Animas River this summer,” explained the legislation’s sponsor, Sen. Ellen Roberts, R-Durango.

Colorado is grappling with how to restore an estimated 23,000 inactive mines across the state. About 200 are draining in the Upper Animas River Basin, with at least 33 leaking in La Plata County alone.

Several Durango-area water policy experts spoke in favor of the measure via a live video feed from Fort Lewis College.

“Most of those mine remediation projects have been based upon working with mine waste, even though the draining mines provide more metals to the river system than the mine waste piles do,” explained Peter Butler, co-coordinator of the Animas River Stakeholders Group and former chairman of the Colorado Water Quality Control Commission.

“A big part of that is because of liability issues in addressing those draining mines, so not very many of those draining mines have been addressed.”

Several legislative efforts are before Congress. State lawmakers and water stakeholders hope to encourage Congress to move faster on the Good Samaritan bills.

“Here, in Southwest Colorado, we all learned together in August 2015 that this type of threat can be directly caused by abandoned mines,” said Liane Jollon, executive director of the San Juan Basin Health Department.

Bruce Whitehead, executive director of the Southwestern Water Conservation District, said it is an issue that impacts watersheds statewide.

“Without that, and without litigation against responsible parties, there probably won’t be much more work done on these mines up here that are a problem, and will continue being a problem,” Whitehead said.

pmarcus@durangoherald.com