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Native Sun News: Comments sought on Black Hills mine cleanup

Thursday, April 28, 2016

An aerial view of the Gilt Edge Mine, located near Lead and Deadwood in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Photo from Environmental Protection Agency

Taxpayers have 30 days to comment on Superfund accord
By Talli Nauman
Native Sun News Health & Environment Editor
www.nsweekly.com

DENVER –– Taxpayers have 30 days to comment on a liability agreement that would reduce their costs by $10 million for the ongoing Superfund cleanup at the Gilt Edge Mine, which was abandoned by a Canadian gold mining company in the Black Hills, the Environmental Protection Agency announced April 15.

In the late 1990s, Brohm Mining Co. left the country, breaking its promise to remove about 150 million gallons of acidic heavy-metal-laden water in three open pits and millions of cubic yards of acid-generating waste rock at the mountain-top heap-leach mine site located five miles southeast of Lead.

Since listing the site as a National Priority in 2000, the EPA has spent more than $91 million to reduce hazardous substances from the Gilt Edge Mine washing downstream into Ruby Gulch, Strawberry Creek and Bear Butte Creek in the Belle Fourche River Watershed and the Madison Aquifer, an underground source of public drinking water.

Brohm representatives agreed to repay tax-supported cleanup costs in the amount of a total $13.46 million more than five years back, according to an Enforcement Case Report that the Native Sun News generated with EPA digital tools on Dec. 31, 2010.

Now CoCa Mines Inc. and Thomas E. Congdon, who sold the company in 1991, have signed an agreement in U.S. District Court with the EPA and the State of South Dakota, which settles their mining liabilities at the Gilt Edge Mine Superfund site through a payment of more than $10 million.