{"id":24426,"date":"2024-12-12T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-12T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bill-to-clean-up-thousands-of-abandoned-mines-passes-congress\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:53:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:53:10","slug":"bill-to-clean-up-thousands-of-abandoned-mines-passes-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bill-to-clean-up-thousands-of-abandoned-mines-passes-congress\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill to clean up thousands of abandoned mines passes Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Workers
Workers are seen inside the Gold King Mine tunnel in 2016. A bill passed by Congress on Tuesday, awaiting the president\u2019s signature, will cut red tape for state agencies and nonprofits that want to clean up abandoned mines. The Gold King would not qualify because it sits in a Superfund site after the historic 2015 spill. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

For over 25 years, advocacy groups and bipartisan lawmakers from across the West have tried to address an intricacy of federal environmental law that has scared off would-be do-gooders from stepping in to clean up actively draining abandoned hardrock mines.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, they were successful.<\/p>\n

The Good Samaritan Remediation of Abandoned Hardrock Mines Act of 2024<\/a>, which passed the Senate unanimously in July, cleared the House of Representatives and is on its way to President Joe Biden for a signature. If signed, it could eventually open the door to remediation of an estimated 23,000 abandoned mines in Colorado, and well over 100,000 nationwide.<\/p>\n

Historically, any entity that steps in to clean up historic mines that are actively draining acid and heavy metals into watersheds becomes entirely liable for the pollution.<\/p>\n

That meant that small organizations, such as the now-defunct Animas River Stakeholders Group<\/a>, which led the charge on 60 mine cleanup projects over 25 years beginning in 1994, could address sources such as waste rock pile. But they couldn\u2019t take on the most egregious sources of pollution \u2013 actively draining mines \u2013 without assuming enormous financial risk.<\/p>\n

The 1972 Clean Water Act requires a polluter to obtain a discharge permit as long as pollution continues. And no good Samaritans were in a position to take on a discharge permit in perpetuity, said Ty Churchwell, mining coordinator for Trout Unlimited. The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit lobbied furiously in favor of this legislation for many years.<\/p>\n

Churchwell, who lives in Durango, said he was \u201call smiles\u201d Tuesday.<\/p>\n

A version of the law was first introduced to Congress in 1999. <\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pitiful that it\u2019s taken as long as it has to pass it,\u201d said Sen. Michael Bennet, a longtime backer of the effort and cosponsor of the successful legislation, in an interview with The Durango Herald<\/em>. \u201cIt was a good idea in 1999 and it\u2019s only become more urgent and important over time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bill, S.2781,<\/a> establishes a seven-year pilot program under which the Environmental Protection Agency can issue \u201cGood Samaritan permits\u201d to address up to 15 historic mining sites.<\/p>\n

Anyone associated with the creation of the hazardous site or who may be potentially liable does not qualify as a good Samaritan, and only sites deemed by the EPA to be low risk are eligible.<\/p>\n

Churchwell said he expects most applicants to be state agencies, and perhaps just a handful of nonprofit organizations that have the capacity to perform mitigation work.<\/p>\n

Unlike the Superfund process, which targets responsible parties with the hope of securing compensation for the cleanup, only sites that have no identifiable liable party are eligible for the Good Samaritan program.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuperfund works really well for the worst cases and very unique cases, but it leaves 98% of the mines out on the landscape with no mechanism by which anybody can clean them up,\u201d Churchwell said.<\/p>\n

\"Churchwell\"
Churchwell<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

He is optimistic the bill will help complement the Clean Water Act and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act that created Superfund.<\/p>\n

However critics, such as New Jersey Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone, have expressed concerns that it could give the EPA the power to circumvent the existing laws that hold polluters accountable.<\/p>\n

\u201cA so-called good Samaritan may do an inadequate job or make the toxic contamination at a site worse. And under this bill, they would not be responsible for the harm that they\u2019ve caused,\u201d Pallone said on the House floor Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Bennet, in response, said the need for remediation at many of the qualifying sites is urgent. And, experts such as Animas River Stakeholders co-founder Peter Butler point out, the Superfund process is effective, but slow and costly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to figure out how to create a legal regime so partners on the ground can work with each other,\u201d Bennet said, adding, \u201cinaction, in a sense, is its own action.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2015, EPA contractors breached an earthen plug on a mine near Silverton and sent 3 million gallons of heavy metal-laden water into the watershed, turning the Animas River a sickly yellow.<\/p>\n

The Gold King Mine spill prompted the EPA to add the Bonita Peak Mining District to the list of Superfund sites. The EPA and Sunnyside Gold Corp, which were found responsible for the spill, contributed about $45 million and $41 respectively<\/a> to the cleanup.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the Gold King spill, everyone backed away from touching these sites \u2013 I mean really backed away,\u201d Butler said. \u201cAnd so I think now that they feel like they\u2019ve got some protection, they\u2019re more willing to do stuff. I think it\u2019ll make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"An
An aerial photo taken Aug. 11, 2015, of wastewater as it streams out of the Gold King Mine near Silverton. \u201cAfter the Gold King spill, everyone backed away from touching these sites \u2013 I mean really backed away,\u201d Peter Butler said. \u201cAnd so I think now that they feel like they\u2019ve got some protection, they\u2019re more willing to do stuff. I think it\u2019ll make a difference.\u201d (Geoff Liesik\/The Deseret News via AP)<\/span>Geoff Liesik\/The Deseret News via AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Given the Superfund designation, the 48 mines or mining-related pollution sources in the Bonita Peak Mining District are not eligible for the Good Samaritan program. But Churchwell estimates there are dozens of mines \u2013 likely over 100 \u2013 not included in the designation that might qualify in the Animas River basin alone.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s confident one of the 15 permits will go to a mine in Colorado, but didn\u2019t speculate as to where it might be. More than anything, this program is a test-piece, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gives us the opportunity to prove up the concept, to demonstrate that we can do it, do it effectively, do it safely, and develop new program within the EPA and identify any shortcomings in this new program before we go for a larger national bill,\u201d Churchwell said.<\/p>\n

rschafir@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Samaritan law will empower states, nonprofits to tackle abandoned sites<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24427,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2730,174,739,2461,28,2306,25],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-24426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-bonita-peak-mining-district","tag-environmental-cleanup","tag-environmental-protection-agency","tag-gold-king-mine-spill","tag-headlines","tag-mining-issues","tag-u-s-sen-michael-bennet"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24426","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=24426"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78530,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24426\/revisions\/78530"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24426"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=24426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}