A correction ran in print on this article, due to incorrect information provided by the state attorney general’s office. The financial obligations in two consent decrees for Asarco LLC, Resurrction Mining Co. and Newmont USA LTd. are $40.4 million in cash, claims and financial assurances.
Colorado and federal agencies have reached a $138.5 million settlement with mining companies for cleanup and damages at the California Gulch Superfund site in Leadville.
Tentative agreements had been announced a year ago with mining companies Newmont USA Ltd. and Asarco LLC.
The California Gulch Superfund site is an 18-square-mile area that includes the town of Leadville.
The site is dotted with more than 2,000 slag piles, tailings piles, waste-rock piles and abandoned mine structures. Mining operations started in 1859 and continued until the late 1990s.
“Today marks the close of an important chapter in our fight to protect and restore Colorado’s environment,” Attorney General John Suthers said in a statement. The suit was filed in 1983.
The settlement includes $20.5 million in natural-resource damages, the second-largest sum in Colorado history — after the $35 million agreement for damages at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal.
The money will be used by the state for projects to remediate, restore and improve the California Gulch site. Mark Jaffe, The Denver Post
A correction ran in print on this article, due to incorrect information provided by the state attorney general’s office. The financial obligations in two consent decrees for Asarco LLC, Resurrction Mining Co. and Newmont USA LTd. are $40.4 million in cash, claims and financial assurances.
