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Mining wastes to be cleaned up in American Fork Canyon
Paul Foy THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ALTA -- Texas oilman Dick Bass invested nearly every dollar he ever earned -- and borrowed millions more -- to develop his Snowbird ski resort, and he wasn't eager to touch the mining waste he inherited on resort lands.
It could make him liable under federal law for an expensive reclamation.
"I owe so much money my tail is puckered to my tonsils every waking moment," Bass, 74, said Wednesday.
But now Snowbird resort is joining an unusual partnership with the U.S. Forest Service, the conservation group Trout Unlimited and Tiffany & Co. to finish cleaning up the acidic pollution leaching heavy metals into American Fork river.
The $2 million project, taking place on some federal and private lands, couldn't be done on federal dollars alone, Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth said.
Bosworth said the Utah partnership could serve as a template for cleanup projects around the West, where mining waste has polluted the headwaters of 40 percent of all watersheds.
"We've definitely made some progress, but a huge amount of work remains to be done," Bosworth said of reclaiming 38,000 unused mines on national forest lands. "It will take decades, and we can't do it alone."
The arrangement here is expected to get the blessing -- and a liability waiver -- from the Environmental Protection Agency, which stalled a cleanup plan for American Fork Canyon when the 2001 anthrax attacks diverted agency funding to a U.S. Senate office building.
Trout Unlimited has been the key to organizing a cleanup for American Fork Canyon, and with Snowbird's help most of the pollution, from a single mine on Snowbird property, could be eliminated by next summer, said Ted Fitzgerald, a retired Forest Service engineer working for Trout Unlimited.
Tiffany & Co.'s pledge of $100,000 over two years made it possible for Trout Unlimited to hire Fitzgerald and speed up the reclamation, which started tentatively on Forest Service lands in 1999. Even before then, Fitzgerald was working to plug mine holes and sample water quality.
American Fork Canyon, which rises from Utah's heavily populated Wasatch Front corridor, was the site of 100 silver and other mines that operated mostly between 1870 and 1920. More than 80 years later, heavy metals are still washing into American Fork river, although the worst runoff has been stemmed, prompting the state to lift a fishing advisory last year.
The American Fork cleanup follows similar projects on Colorado's Upper Arkansas River and Montana's Blackfoot River, but time and neglect threatens to worsen other watersheds.
Chris Wood, a vice president for Trout Unlimited, calls this problem the "the crazy aunt in the attic" of environmental problems in the West. "It's sometimes easier to turn a blind eye to the problem than take them on," he said.This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A4.
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[/url] | [url "http://www.harktheherald.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Recommend_Us&file=index&req=FriendSend&sid=32219"][/url]Mining wastes to be cleaned up in American Fork Canyon
Paul Foy THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ALTA -- Texas oilman Dick Bass invested nearly every dollar he ever earned -- and borrowed millions more -- to develop his Snowbird ski resort, and he wasn't eager to touch the mining waste he inherited on resort lands.
It could make him liable under federal law for an expensive reclamation.
"I owe so much money my tail is puckered to my tonsils every waking moment," Bass, 74, said Wednesday.
But now Snowbird resort is joining an unusual partnership with the U.S. Forest Service, the conservation group Trout Unlimited and Tiffany & Co. to finish cleaning up the acidic pollution leaching heavy metals into American Fork river.
The $2 million project, taking place on some federal and private lands, couldn't be done on federal dollars alone, Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth said.
Bosworth said the Utah partnership could serve as a template for cleanup projects around the West, where mining waste has polluted the headwaters of 40 percent of all watersheds.
"We've definitely made some progress, but a huge amount of work remains to be done," Bosworth said of reclaiming 38,000 unused mines on national forest lands. "It will take decades, and we can't do it alone."
The arrangement here is expected to get the blessing -- and a liability waiver -- from the Environmental Protection Agency, which stalled a cleanup plan for American Fork Canyon when the 2001 anthrax attacks diverted agency funding to a U.S. Senate office building.
Trout Unlimited has been the key to organizing a cleanup for American Fork Canyon, and with Snowbird's help most of the pollution, from a single mine on Snowbird property, could be eliminated by next summer, said Ted Fitzgerald, a retired Forest Service engineer working for Trout Unlimited.
Tiffany & Co.'s pledge of $100,000 over two years made it possible for Trout Unlimited to hire Fitzgerald and speed up the reclamation, which started tentatively on Forest Service lands in 1999. Even before then, Fitzgerald was working to plug mine holes and sample water quality.
American Fork Canyon, which rises from Utah's heavily populated Wasatch Front corridor, was the site of 100 silver and other mines that operated mostly between 1870 and 1920. More than 80 years later, heavy metals are still washing into American Fork river, although the worst runoff has been stemmed, prompting the state to lift a fishing advisory last year.
The American Fork cleanup follows similar projects on Colorado's Upper Arkansas River and Montana's Blackfoot River, but time and neglect threatens to worsen other watersheds.
Chris Wood, a vice president for Trout Unlimited, calls this problem the "the crazy aunt in the attic" of environmental problems in the West. "It's sometimes easier to turn a blind eye to the problem than take them on," he said.This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A4.
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