Rethinking Mining HIstory

Up until this week, I've been proud of my family's mining history.

I've enjoyed seeing mines as I hike the San Juan Mountains.

But now I'm realizing the continuing environmental impact of the miners who came in, found gold and silver, processed it with cyanide and arsenic and other toxic chemicals, and made their fortunes--or at least made a living.

What I love is the natural beauty of Colorado, but I'm learning that huge deposits of poisons lie inside these mines, plugged for now, but just waiting for enough water drainage to burst the portals open.

This reality sheds a grim light on summer recreation in Colorado.  This blog was supposed to be about blue flax and dangers from invasive plants, but mining waste turns out to be a more frightening problem.

Allen Best analyzes the historical roots of the pollution today:

http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_28617094/best:-kicking-the-environmental-can-down-the-river

The headline--"Kicking the environmental can down the river"--says it all.

Best is the only writer so far who addresses the whole historical perspective of mining in Colorado and its impact in the 130 years since the mines were first claimed.

My great-grandfather worked at the Black Bear Mine above Telluride--my other great-grandfather at a mine in Bedrock Gulch in the La Platas.  For most of my life, these miners have been romantic figures, and I've regarded the mines with friendly interest.

But now I'm realizing that these mines and their owners just kicked the can down the road on environmental impact.  

From now on, when I take mountain hikes past these old mines, I'm going to be worried and thoughtful rather than nostalgic.

But my brother Jim writes in an email:

"Well, ugly or not, disaster or not, I still love my leaky old Colorado mines! They're part of the heritage that opened up the state."

1978 Precursor to Gold King spill

Read about the previous mining disaster in the same location in 1978:

"Disaster at the Sunnyside" in The San Juan Triangle of Colorado (Denver: Lithographie, 2011), which is for sale at the museum of the Colorado School of Mines.


The Gold King Mine is part of the Sunnyside Mine, connected by the American Tunnel.

http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/museum/minsymp/abstracts/view.cfml?aid=100

The 1978 disaster at the Sunnyside also emptied into Cement Creek because the mines are connected, essentially in the same place.  

Cement Creek runs northwest-to-southeast directly into the NW corner of Silverton, joining the Animas in the SE corner of town.

Here's another great analysis of the causes and history of mine spills near Silverton:

http://www.hcn.org/articles/when-our-river-turned-orange-animas-river-spill?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=55cc813204d3012947000001&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook

To learn more, I need to take the Old Hundred Gold Mine Tour near Silverton.

  http://www.minetour.com/index.html

I've only done the Bachelor Syracuse Mine Tour near Ouray and the Silver Bell tour they used to have at Ophir.

Blue flax plants aren't the only wild life that need friends.

The August 5 waste spill from the Gold King Mine east of Silverton shows the dangers to plant, animal, and human life hidden in these beautiful mountains.

Thank you to the Los Angeles Times for this page-one summary five days later.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-river-mine-spill-20150810-story.html#page=1

"The danger posed by mines was laid out in a 1993 report from the Mineral Policy Center, a Washington think tank dedicated to identifying threats to natural resources. The study said there were about 557,650 of these sites in 32 states and 50 billion tons of untreated waste covering public and private land. The waste included arsenic, asbestos, cadmium, cyanide and mercury," reports David Kelly.

The gold rush thinking was "Get the gold now, worry about waste later."

Now it's 150 years later, and we are encountering the poisons turned loose in 1880 and later.