When residents in Creede learned that a century of mining had left environmental ruin at their doorsteps, they vowed to fix the problem themselves.
Afraid the town would land on the federal Superfund list of the nation’s most polluted sites, they rolled up their sleeves and formed their own cleanup group.
But now, after eight years, the tiny Colorado town is asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for help — even if it means landing on the Superfund list.
“The city and the county have invited the EPA to come in because they can bring in a lot more resources,” said Carishma Gokhale- Welch, director of the Willow Creek Reclamation Committee.
Although wary of the EPA’s reputation as a massive, inflexible federal bureaucracy, residents and officials found the agency has gone to great lengths to avoid being heavy-handed and to work with the community.
“When I first heard about this, I, too, was concerned because I had heard so many things about working with Superfund sites and with the EPA,” said town manager Clyde Dooley. “But basically, we feel real comfortable with what’s happening.”
The agency has been stung by criticism of Superfund efforts in other historic mining towns like Leadville, where a massive cleanup effort has taken 25 years and burned through tens of millions of dollars, generating local antagonism.
“We’re trying to avoid anything that might repeat Leadville,” said Peggy Linn, an EPA community-involvement coordinator. “You can accomplish a lot more . . . when you have community support.”
The agency first considered cleaning up the mining district in 2000, but locals feared the Superfund designation could hurt business and real estate.
So they started Willow Creek Reclamation Committee, a grassroots effort to reduce the toxic heavy metals such as cadmium, lead and zinc that were leaching into lifeless streams a mile above the town.
With the help of $1.2 million in grants, the committee cleaned up seven sites in the historic King Solomon Mining District.
“It’s just been incredible what they’ve accomplished so far,” Linn said. “But everybody knows that they’ve got some bigger hurdles to clear now before it makes sense to do other work.”
The biggest hurdle is a century-old mine-drainage tunnel that poisons Willow Creek, a tributary to the Rio Grande, with as much as 300 gallons per minute of acidic, metals-laden runoff.
One possible solution — a water-treatment plant — would cost about $2 million to build, according to a 2006 study done by the committee.
The plant would also require annual operating expenses that the town of fewer than 500 people couldn’t cover.
“This particular site is a bit more difficult than most of the other sites we’ve worked on,” said the committee’s Gokhale- Welch. “There’s some skepticism. . . . But there’s been a lot of community involvement (by the EPA), and we have a good working relationship with them.”
Zeke Ward, the chairman of the committee, said the group also was worried about taking on the tunnel’s legal liability.
Ward supports stalled federal legislation to shield well-intentioned organizations from lawsuits if something goes wrong during a cleanup.
“We were hopeful we could get ‘good Samaritan’ legislation,” he said. “But there was no way the Willow Creek committee could take on that responsibility.”
Given that the tunnel drainage contributes as much as 75 percent of the heavy metals to the creek, residents finally dropped their resistance when EPA officials said they could take on the project under the umbrella of Superfund.
They have not yet determined what remedies would be applied, but there have been suggestions a water-treatment plant could be disguised to look like an old mine building and the adjacent Commodore waste-rock pile would not have to be removed.
That’s important, because tourism has replaced mining as the major interest in the scenic valleys rimmed by 12,000-foot crags and dotted with historic mines with names like Holy Moses, Last Chance, Amethyst and the Commodore.
While residents have concerns about Superfund’s stigma and the cost and duration of the cleanup, no one has voiced objections yet, officials say.
“The Willow Creek committee is still seeking alternatives in other places,” Ward said, “but at this point, the EPA is our best hope of getting that thing cleaned up sooner than later, and we’re not going to be obstructionist about it.”
Steve Lipsher: 970-513-9495 or slipsher@denverpost.com
