State prosecutors have reached a deal with a federal agency to compensate Colorado for some of the mining industry’s worst acid-water pollution in mountains near Leadville that produced billions of dollars of minerals.
The agreement filed Thursday in U.S. District Court would have the Bureau of Reclamation, owners of the Leadville Mine Drainage Tunnel, pay $300,000 to Colorado in return for a promise not to seek more compensation for environmental destruction.
Coloradans have 30 days to comment. A federal judge must approve the deal for it to take effect.
“We wouldn’t be entering into this if we didn’t feel it was an appropriate deal,” said Vicky Peters, senior assistant attorney general, who negotiated for the state.
“The problem is we don’t have strong evidence for past injuries. We can’t quantify the injuries from the past very well.”
The $300,000 for damages so severe – dark toxic torrents once left the Arkansas River devoid of fish, with surrounding birdless meadows barren and waters discolored 60 miles downstream – is far less than the $65 million state prosecutors are seeking from private mining companies responsible for the bulk of the pollution in the area around Leadville.
But this is the closest state attorneys have come to collecting compensation for damages under federal law. State lawsuits against private mining companies, filed under the federal Superfund law in 1983, still haven’t been settled. One of the major polluters, Asarco, has declared bankruptcy.
Mining companies that made millions in the 1950s and 1960s spewed thousands of gallons of acid-water waste laced with cadmium, zinc and other hazardous metals directly into the East Fork of the Arkansas River. The tunnel, built during the Korean War, carried waste away from mines so that mining could continue.
Colorado prosecutors have been wrangling for three years with attorneys for the Bureau of Reclamation, which bought the drainage tunnel from mining companies in 1959 because federal water developers thought it would be useful for massive water projects.
That left the federal developers responsible for pollution. A Sierra Club lawsuit forced them to build a wastewater- treatment plant in 1992.
Mining companies have spent millions cleaning up some of the decimated areas around Leadville. The Superfund law also requires payment of compensation for damages.
“We believe this is an appropriate and fair settlement,” said Gary Baughman, executive director of the hazardous material and waste management division in the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
Colorado officials plan to use the $300,000, if the deal is approved, to purchase land along the upper Arkansas River from the city of Aurora and set it aside for recreational activities, Baughman said. “It’s a good step forward.”
Staff writer Bruce Finley can be reached at 303-954-1700 or bfinley@denverpost.com.
