Mapping Inactive Metal Mines Across the US

On August 5, the Animas River in southwestern Colorado was subjected to at least a 3,000,000 gallon discharge of acidic, metal-laden mine waste from the Gold King Mine when contractors for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) accidentally breached a mine pool while investigating a leak from the inactive mine. 

Tens of thousands of these toxic sites lie scattered across the nation.

With all the attention on the problem of abandoned and inactive mines SkyTruth thought they would try to map some of these other mines that haven't made headlines (yet).

LINK

Judge backs Pebble in dispute with EPA

A federal judge has approved a request for a subpoena compelling a former Environmental Protection Agency official to explain his actions in the agency’s controversial decision to prevent a proposed gold mine from being built in southwestern Alaska.

U.S. District Judge H. Russel Holland signed off on the motion on Thursday in Anchorage, setting the stage for a potentially dramatic confrontation between former EPA biologist Phillip North and the would-be developers of the Pebble Mine.

LINK (via: The Washington Post)

Catastrophe on the Animas

Unbelievable.

Acidic wastewater from an abandoned mine above Silverton coursed its way through La Plata County on Thursday, turning the Animas River orange-brown, forcing the city of Durango to stop pumping raw water from the river and persuading the sheriff to close the river to public use.

LINK (via: The Durango Herald)

Will a Century-Old Treaty Protect Alaska's Salmon Rivers from B.C.'s Mining Boom?

Image: Salmon Beyond Borders

Southeast Alaskans, anxious about B.C.'s mining boom along the Alaskan border, are pinning their hopes for stronger mine management on a treaty that dates back more than a century.

The International Joint Commission (IJC), operating under the Boundary Waters Treaty since 1909, is a body with six appointed members —three from Canada and three from the U.S. — used to resolve water or air conflicts between the two countries.

However, although the commission appears to be tailor-made to deal with the concern over B.C. mines in the headwaters of Southeast Alaska’s most important salmon rivers, politicians on both side of the border appear reluctant to hand over responsibility to a commission whose recommendations remain entirely independent of either party.

LINK (via:DESMOGCANADA)

Headlines that make the Chum want to drink a case of Staw-Ber-Ritas

BC’s Mount Polley Mine to Re-Open After 2014 Dam Breach

A British Columbia mine that’s become a symbol of mineral extraction’s environmental threats will reopen next month. Provincial officials on Thursday granted the Mount Polley Mine conditional approval to resume limited operations.

LINK (via:AK Public Radio)

Old mines still plague Montana's Clark Fork

Why one of the nation's largest Superfund river sites can't address pollution from abandoned mines.

A century ago, one of North America’s largest copper booms rattled the river’s headwaters in Butte. Several hundred mines burrowed beneath the city, and in 1908, a flood washed tons of contaminated sediments from those mines into the river. Arsenic, copper, zinc, lead and cadmium contaminated millions of tons of sediment along 120 miles of the river’s banks — all the way to Missoula. The river’s legendary but struggling trout all but vanished.

LINK (via: High Country News)