Toxics Cleanup Program >
Abandoned Mine Lands Initiative
Toxics Cleanup Program >
Abandoned Mine Lands Initiative
AML sites present unique challenges and opportunities related to their remediation. For example, when a prospector located a mineral deposit and began working it, it usually was not long before multiple workings were present, either from his efforts or the efforts of others who immediately followed his footsteps. The result of this is that it is quite common to have a watershed or mining district with multiple sites all having an impact on a particular water body or specific ecological area. This same pattern of distribution provides opportunities to conduct cleanups in new ways. This may range from something as simple as creating a single waste repository to handle all wastes within a watershed, to something more complex like a situation where multiple parties all contribute to a trust that is responsible for funding and managing the cleanups in a given area.
Another opportunity/challenge that AML sites push the Program toward is the universe of ecologically driven cleanups. By nature, the majority of AML sites in Washington are not near human populations nor do they have a great deal of human activity. Rather, the impacts from these sites are more ecologically driven; i.e., water quality discharges that impact fish and sediments, or soil contamination levels that exceed terrestrial ecological criteria.
In order to work through the opportunities and difficulties presented by AML sites such as the above examples, there are six basic areas that the Program will be focusing its efforts on:
1) Information Gathering/Management: Presently the Program’s number 1 priority, this work is being designed to develop and maintain a capacity for a statewide inventory of inactive, orphaned, and/or abandoned mine sites. This will be utilizing existing State data management systems. Any new systems will be compatible and coordinated with other state and federal agency efforts. Current efforts will be on the 541 sites noted earlier.
2) Remediation and Technical Issues: While working to inventory and prioritize the sites needing attention, work will continue on all existing AML sites that are in the cleanup process. As these sites move through the cleanup process various technical issues unique to AML sites will be identified and need resolution. This may include things such as low power, high-altitude year-round access and operations, treatment technologies, or ultra clean sampling techniques.
3) Funding Approaches: It is estimated that ~600 companies at one point in time or another were involved with mine sites in Washington over the past 100-plus years. Nearly all of these companies have either ceased to exist or moved out of the mining business. The result is that the State is faced with a potentially very large cleanup bill with few viable parties that can be held responsible for the problem. To address this, the Program has began the process of assessing models and mechanisms such as insurance options and contingency funds, to pay for remediation, including long-term operations and maintenance at orphan/abandon sites.
4) Collaboration: Due to the complexities of land ownership, the quantity of sites, the various regulatory schemes, and the large financial demand, no one regulatory agency in Washington can complete this effort by itself. Success will require that the Program build strong working relationships with sister agencies such as the EPA, USFS, BLM, NPS, USFW, WDNR and others. The Program has chosen to invest time and monies in taking on the lead role to create and implement a coordinated approach to these AML issues in Washington. The products of this may range from informal working relationships to the creation of formal working agreements to the formation of an AML workgroup composed of the various agencies.
5) Institutional/Legislative Barriers: As we move through the cleanup process on some existing AML sites, we are discovering various questions and issues that are Institutional or Legislative barriers to achieving work at AML sites. For example, in some cases natural conditions may dictate that it is impossible to meet cleanup levels for water quality. Presently cleanup laws do not allow for a technical impracticability argument to be made under MTCA or some of the Applicable or Relevant and Appropriate Requirements (ARARs) that need to be met. Another example is the current legal environment of the Clean Water Act which prevents parties from conducting what has come to be known as Good Samaritan efforts at these sites. Good Samaritan efforts are simply situations where a third party may wish to contribute to the cleanup at a site. While under MTCA these parties can be given protection from liability, no such mechanism exists to address similar liability risks under other laws such as the Clean Water Act. It is barriers such as these that over time will need attention.
6) Community Involvement: Create a plan to foster community involvement in AML cleanup issues, especially as they relate to local watershed improvement efforts.