Taxpayers got mixed news in late August about the
cleanup of southern Colorado’s notorious Summitville gold
mine.
The good news came from the Justice
Department, which announced that it had convinced a Canadian bank
to freeze $152 million in stocks owned by the mining executive who
oversaw Summitville. That mine’s toxic wastes killed 17 miles of
river and forced the EPA to take over a cleanup effort in 1992 that
is expected to cost the public at least $120 million (HCN,
1/25/93).
Mining magnate Robert Friedland cut his
ties with Summitville in 1990, but Justice Department lawyers say
he is still responsible for the cleanup. “People who do business in
the United States cannot simply walk away from their environmental
legacies with impunity, leaving the burden of cleanup on the
American taxpayer,” said assistant attorney general Lois
Schiffer.
The bad news, however, came from
officials of federal and state agencies who propose to lower water
quality standards for the streams and rivers polluted at
Summitville. The state contends that new computer models show the
waterways were already significantly polluted before Galactic
Minerals took over the site in the mid-1980s. But a group of local
ranchers, water users and elected officials says a healthy fishery
used to thrive in waters which the proposed standards would leave
uninhabitable.
The local water conservation
district has asked the state to delay hearings on the new rules
until next year.
– Paul
Larmer
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Feds go after Summitville boss.
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