Colorado\u2019s Mined Land Reclamation Board<\/a> in 2014 revoked his license and seized the $8,685 bond.<\/p>\nThe $10,315 difference will now be covered by a fund set up for these types of situations, Waldron said. Part will be come from federal money, and another portion will be covered by a severance tax on Colorado\u2019s gross income taken from oil and gas and carbon dioxide production, which contributes about $130,000 a year to the state\u2019s mine cleanup efforts.<\/p>\n
Kirstin Brown, a reclamation specialist with DMRS, said work at the Freda Mine is likely to begin in summer 2017.<\/p>\n
She said crews, among other tasks, will need to haul off trash from a recently erected mill building, close two mine portals, and take on a large project to re-grade mine waste piles that are eroding into Ruby Creek, a tributary of Mineral Creek.<\/p>\n
Brown also found during a 2015 inspection a mine waste pile outside the permit boundary on adjacent Forest Service land.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd oddly, it\u2019s uphill of the site, which is very strange, and not the way (miners) normally work,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Brown estimated the project would take a couple weeks to complete once crews can gain access to the hard-to-get-to site near Ophir Pass, at an elevation of 11,200 feet.<\/p>\n
The approximately 1-acre site is relatively small when compared with other polluters in the heavily mined Animas River watershed, and is not included in the Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s recently declared Superfund listing, which will address 48 mining sites around Silverton.<\/p>\n
Yet Brown said the small mine waste piles and trash that is a potential hazard to waterways is just enough to be \u201cirritating,\u201d warranting a cleanup.<\/p>\n
Aside from the Freda Mine, DMRS\u2019s Waldron said the state is paying for a cleanup project at Liukko\u2019s other former mining operation in Mancos, where investigators in 2013 say they found dangerous levels of mercury and arsenic contamination.<\/p>\n
Waldron said DMRS completed one season of work over the summer, yet there are lingering tasks to do in summer 2017 before the site is fully remediated.<\/p>\n
So far, the state has spent $113,034 on cleaning the site in Mancos, with only $8,875 of Red Arrow\u2019s initial bond covering the cost, according to DMRS spokesman Todd Hartman.<\/p>\n
Liukko, who lives in Arizona, also has not paid any of the $339,667 in violations issued by the state, Hartman said, adding that the amounts due have been sent to the state\u2019s collection office.<\/p>\n
When contacted last week, Liukko said he was unable to comment because of pending litigation.<\/p>\n
His company is involved in a bankruptcy case in Colorado, wherein Liukko claims Red Arrow\u2019s parent company American Patriot Gold and investors Maximilion Investors seized Red Arrow\u2019s assets with the intent of taking over the mine in Mancos.<\/p>\n
Liukko argued the $25 million loan the investors promised was not delivered, and the continual breach of funding obligations led to the mine\u2019s closure and Red Arrow\u2019s inability to pay for the cost of cleanup.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe agenda of Maximilian and APG became very clear after more than two years of false assurances and delays that began in 2010; to own the Red Arrow Mine via concocted defaults and eventual foreclosure, after a large quantity of mineral potential was established,\u201d Red Arrow said in court filings associated with the bankruptcy.<\/p>\n
Maximilian Investors did not return requests for comment, and representatives with American Patriot Gold could not be reached. Both parties filed a motion to dismiss Red Arrow\u2019s claims for relief.<\/p>\n
Waldron said cases like Liukko are a \u201crarity\u201d in the state. He said the state has about 1,600 mining sites permitted and about $528 million in financial warranties for mine sites and another $23 million for prospecting sites.<\/p>\n
He said legal action against Liukko would cost \u201cmore in legal expenses than what we\u2019d gain back,\u201d so it\u2019s not likely the state would press charges against him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t watch every site every day all the time, but we do inspect with some frequency,\u201d Waldron said. \u201cAnd sometimes we do get stuck with (the) amount of bond we have.\u201d<\/p>\n
jromeo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gold Corporation\u2019s former site requires remediation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":71047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2336,174,13,239,1562],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-71046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado-state-officials","tag-environmental-cleanup","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-mining","tag-san-juan-county-colorado"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71046","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=71046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71046"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=71046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}