<\/p>\n
At the last conference with stakeholders affected by the Aug. 5 Gold King Mine spill, the Environmental Protection Agency was at a loss to provide specific details about Superfunds, except for one statistic: The designation could raise Silverton\u2019s property values 18 percent when all is said and done.<\/p>\n
That prediction, for the most part, was not met well by the handful of residents who sat among various state and local officials in Silverton\u2019s packed City Hall on Sept. 4 to hear the EPA\u2019s presentation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was the only number all of them were able to repeat throughout the meeting,\u201d said David Breed, a Silverton resident. \u201cThey just don\u2019t have much credentials when they throw out \u201818 percent\u2019 and can\u2019t say how much it will go down or how long it will take to go back up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those in attendance asked several questions the EPA would not or could not answer: How long is the wait list for a Superfund? How much time would a remediation take? Will brokers give loans for homebuyers? Where will the funds come from, and what happens if they run out?<\/p>\n
As EPA officials continued to offer vague answers, those in attendance became visibly agitated.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I have to wait 25 years for my property values to go back up?\u201d a resident asked.<\/p>\n
EPA officials pointed to a study they claim proves an uptick in property values after Superfund sites are cleaned up. Though, EPA assistant administrator Mathy Stanislaus admitted that there is a slight reduction in property values when an area is placed on the Superfund list because of the public\u2019s negative perception of the designation.<\/p>\n
He said that during every step of remediation, however, property values tend to rise. And once complete, he said, the study showed home values around a Superfund site jump 18 percent.<\/p>\n
The study the EPA referenced is a 2011 academic analysis, \u201cDoes cleanup of hazardous waste sites raise housing values? Evidence of spatially localized benefits\u201d that claims residential property values within three miles of Superfund sites increased 18.6 to 24.5 percent when remediation was finished.<\/p>\n
However, Christopher Timmins, co-author of the study, told The Durango Herald he \u201cwould be cautious\u201d using those statistics when it comes to selling the case for Superfund designation in Silverton.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s clear on average these treatments do very well, but any particular location could fare very differently based on specific attributes of the place,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd there are some things about Silverton that would make me nervous.\u201d<\/p>\n
Timmins said the study looked at the recovery of 331 Superfund sites between 1990 and the early 2000s, and the 18 percent increase is taken from a pre-Superfund proposal baseline. There were big winners and big losers, he said, and those sites on the losing end usually had the hazardous-area stigma permanently attached.<\/p>\n
He said Silverton might already have that \u201cstigma\u201d because of the Aug. 5 blowout, and he wasn\u2019t sure whether the move to Superfund would have a positive or negative impact.<\/p>\n
\u201cSilverton is probably fragile, with 600 people depending on tourism,\u201d Timmins said. \u201cYou could see how that would fold up and go away with a few years of bad business. But is it any better, though, to just let it keep leaking? It just sounds like a bad situation all around.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Leadville model<\/p>\n
Real estate agents from two other Colorado towns said they have not seen the kind of recovery purported by the EPA.<\/p>\n
Amy Morrison, based in Leadville, said a number of factors hit the town\u2019s property value in the early 1980s. First, a massive toxic blowout from a nearby mine that prompted a Superfund listing in 1983, and then, three years later, the mine\u2019s closure, taking with it 3,000 employees.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was absolute devastation,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Morrison said a major issue is that when an area qualifies for a Superfund listing, potential homeowners cannot get a mortgage because brokers do not want to take the chance of insuring loans in a risky market.<\/p>\n
That concerns Silverton residents, who have not been told whether the town itself would be in the designated zone or if the designation would be confined to the Upper Animas mining district. EPA officials said more data is needed before boundaries can be set, but they said the agency would be open to writing letters to lenders in support of real estate transactions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt stalls our market, and when the market stalls, our property values decrease,\u201d said Sharon Lance, a real estate agent in Silverton. \u201cWe\u2019re already a town challenged by economic hardship. That would just make things worse. Letters to the bank? That\u2019s just so bogus.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morrison said Leadville is steadily improving, but she doesn\u2019t think it has anything to do with the Superfund site. She said it has more to do with the reopening of Climax Mine (which brought 300 staff members) and the two water-treatment plants in place.<\/p>\n
Over in the Rio Grande region, the situation is even grimmer. The Summitville mine, abandoned in the late 1880s, was reopened nearly a century later by a company that trashed the area, declared bankruptcy and left.<\/p>\n
It took three years to obtain a Superfund designation, and by that time, the mine\u2019s waste had wiped out all aquatic life on 17 miles of the Alamosa River, washing away all value in properties with it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was like a natural disaster, and people stay away from natural disasters,\u201d said Bruce Steffens, who has worked in real estate in San Luis Valley for 25 years.<\/p>\n
For Steffens, the economic downturn is twofold: The mining companies create the problem, and the federal government mismanages the cleanup, bringing with it the stigma of a Superfund.<\/p>\n
Situation in Silverton<\/p>\n
Home values weren\u2019t exactly soaring in Silverton before the river turned orange. Located within the state\u2019s least-populated county, state demographic officials estimate that only 63 new people will move into San Juan County over the next 20 years.<\/p>\n
Steve Leisle with Silverton Realty said the town of about 600 full-time residents is still suffering from the economic meltdown in 2008, because unlike other areas, Silverton is a secondary home market.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think something will happen long term that will be a benefit to Silverton,\u201d he said. \u201c(In the short term) I have had a couple interested buyers, but I think there\u2019s a hesitation for people to buy in Silverton till we work through this thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
While some Silverton residents favor an alternative to being placed on the federal agency\u2019s list, longtime resident Melody Skinner said she\u2019s open to the Superfund.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve already been living with this 20, 25 years,\u201d she said. \u201cAs difficult spot as it is, the question is: Is it going to make it worse (designating a Superfund), or is clean water going to make it better?\u201d<\/p>\n
Visit bit.ly\/1LhO0CQ to view the 59-page report, \u201cDoes cleanup of hazardous Waste Sites Raise Housing Values?\u201d by Shanti Gamper-Rabindran and Christopher Timmins.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Silverton residents wary over EPA\u2019s claim that home prices rise<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":109409,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[21,308,629],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-109408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-cortez","tag-local-elections","tag-southern-ute-indian-tribe"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109408"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=109408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}