Last Thursday (February 3, 2022), a bipartisan bill that would help address the chronic problem of pollution leaking from abandoned hardrock mines was introduced in the U.S. Senate. Lead bill sponsors Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM) and Senator James Risch (R-ID) were joined by Colorado’s senior Senator Michael Bennet (D) as an original cosponsor, as well as Senators Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Steve Daines (R-MT), Jon Tester (D-MT), Mike Crapo (R-ID), and John Barrasso (R-WY).
The Good Samaritan Remediation of Abandoned Hardrock Mines Act of 2022 would help address an estimated 500,000 abandoned mines - mines with no one remaining that is responsible for clean-up – 33,000 of which are known to be causing environmental damage. More than 110,000 miles of streams are listed as impaired for heavy metals and/or acidity, and abandoned mines are a major source of these impairments due to acid-mine drainage with toxic metals, such as mercury, lead and arsenic.
“Abandoned mines represent the least addressed and greatest threat to water quality in the nation,” said Chris Wood, President and CEO of Trout Unlimited. “There is no constituency for abandoned mines and orange water, and we’re excited for Congress to take bipartisan action that will allow organizations such as TU to help protect our communities and clean our rivers and streams.”
Under current law, Good Samaritan parties can and do voluntarily undertake projects to clean up “non-point-source” abandoned mine pollution, such as moving contaminated waste rock piles away from streams. However, under the Clean Water Act, groups wanting to take on “point-source” mine cleanups—where toxic drainage is discharging directly from the mine opening —face daunting obstacles, including complicated permitting and long-term legal and financial liability for any remaining mine pollution.
The Good Samaritan cleanup bill would establish a pilot program for a permitting process administered by the Environmental Protection Agency that would enable qualified nonprofit groups and other third parties to tackle cleanups of abandoned mine sites, in part by providing targeted, limited liability protection for these so-called “Good Samaritan” groups. State and federal governments have spent billions cleaning up leaking abandoned mines where current law allows, but there is much more work to do. Good Samaritan legislation would help get a handle on the problem by providing an alternative to relying solely on federal Superfund cleanups, which suffer from a lack of funding and capacity. Additionally, Superfund is not well-suited to address the tens of thousands of isolated, smaller mines that would not likely qualify as Superfund sites.
The challenge of abandoned mines is very significant for Colorado. After the Gold King mine spill in 2015 that impacted the Animas River, numerous Federal and State agencies placed a greater emphasis on quantifying the scope and scale of draining mines in Colorado. A study by the State Division of Reclamation Mining and Safety showed over 250 draining mines in Colorado with 148 likely degrading downstream water quality.
“From the San Juans to the Mosquito range, Colorado’s mountains are dotted with abandoned mines that pollute many of our headwater streams,” said David Nickum, Executive Director of Colorado TU. “Under current law, watershed stewards who could help solve the problem instead would face long-term liability for problems that they had nothing to do with creating. We are grateful to Senator Bennet, and to lead sponsors Senator Heinrich and Senator Risch, for bringing forward common-sense, bipartisan legislation to empower Good Sams to start the important work of cleaning up these abandoned draining mines.”
Newly introduced federal legislation can help Good Samaritans tackle the pollution caused by abandoned mines in Colorado and throughout the West.
