FOREST SERVICE ABANDONED / INACTIVE MINE LAND INVENTORY AND VARIOUS APPROACHES TO MINE LAND CLEAN-UP

• Jurisdiction: United States

Cleaning up the Public Domain: The Next Frontier
(Mar 1996)
CHAPTER 1A
FOREST SERVICE ABANDONED / INACTIVE MINE LAND INVENTORY AND VARIOUS APPROACHES TO MINE LAND CLEAN-UP
Tim Buxton
Forest Service Rio Grande National Forest
Saguache, Colorado

Introduction

• Rocky Mountain Region — USDA Forest Service

• Inventory Programs

• Approaches to clean-up work at various sites

Regional Program

• Abandoned and Inactive Mines Inventory program

— identifying environmental problems and physical hazards

— conducted by partnership with other entities

• States

— South Dakota — SD School of Mines — tentative results

— Wyoming — US Bureau of Mines — tentative results

— Colorado — CO Geological Survey

• Discovery process — office, field, document

• Rating Systems — Guidelines

• Results — 9,667 sites through 1994

• General conclusions of Inventory Program

— Small percentage of sites on Forest Service-administered federal lands are active polluters

— Forest Service responding to inventory data — response costs unknown

— Data apply only to Forest Service-administered federal lands

Processes at specific mining sites

• Forest Service CERCLA authority

— Lead agency on non-NPL sites (EO 12580; 7 CFR 2.60)

— Federal non-PRP status

• Sites

— Adjacent to private lands — Annie Creek — PRP funded, EPA administered

— Within NPL site — Little Bear & Minnesota mines — FS/EPA partnership

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— No PRPs available for site on Forest — Spokane Mine — FS funded/conducted

— Bonanza Mining Area Opportunity — CERCLA site — Voluntary PRP funded/conducted actions on public/private lands under FS & State authority. All party cooperation

• Background

• History of Forest Service actions

— Forest Service goals and assumptions

— Options

— Work accomplished to date

• Rawley 12 Operable Unit (1994)

• Superior Millsite Operable Unit (1995)

• Planned 1996 Activity

Summary/Questions

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Partnerships

• South Dakota School of Mines— Black Hills National Forest

• Wyoming — US Bureau of Mines — Bighorn, Shoshone, Medicine Bow National Forests

• Colorado Geological Survey — Arapaho/Roosevelt, Pike/San Isabel, San Juan/Rio Grande, White River, GMUG National Forests

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Guidelines for Environmental Degradation Ratings

1=Extreme — "Dead" or sterile water in stream pH 1500

2=Significant — Seriously contaminated drainage pH 1000

3=Potentially Significant — Degraded water; serious effects not seen/known pH 800

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