EDITORIAL PAGE — Who’s cleaning up at Summitville?

The name of Robert Friedland is mud in Colorado, where he will be forever linked to that mine from hell: Summitville. Even in mining circles, where a few words of admiration are grudgingly doled out for his ability to raise large sums of money for just about anything, Friedland is best remembered as the preppy poster boy for the “Keep Mining Out of America” campaign.

Friedland argues that a series of engineering and technical mistakes had more to do with the Summitville disaster than he did. And that’s what bothers the folks in Colorado the most, even those who acknowledge that, yes, the experts on whom Friedland relied did make all those mistakes, and then some. In cowboy country, the buck has to stop somewhere and it sure as heck is not going to stop anywhere but on the bossman’s desk.

But all that is toxic water under the bridge. Summitville is now in the hands of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which, to the end of 1994, had spent US$59.5 million to clean up the minesite (excluding its Denver office costs). Of this, US$39.58 million was applied to actual work on site, US$11.1 million to studies and US$8.78 million to site administrative costs. The final bill is expected to top US$120 million.

EPA’s work is monitored by an advisory committee which includes the Colorado Mining Association and a local citizens’ group. The committee has growing concerns about EPA’s work, not to mention the escalating costs, particularly of contract work done on a cost plus basis.

One concern is the “apparent lack of experience” shown by EPA, its contractors and consultants in mine cleanup. EPA is being urged to hire firms with mining expertise and to consider offers of technical assistance from several companies within the mining industry.

Another concern is that work is often done before plans can be reviewed and critiqued, such as the decision to move waste rock into the mine pit. From summer, 1993, to February, 1994, almost 930,000 cubic yards were moved at a cost of US$9.13 per cubic yard, or US$8.46 million. Mining groups pointed out that this job could have been done for one-third that cost, and to good avail, as costs did fall the next year.

But the story does not end there. Close to $1 million was spent to plug the old Reynolds adit, although no one appears to know precisely where the water that used to come out of this adit will be “re-directed” (only that it will come out somewhere). Because the adit is in direct hydraulic communication with the pit, it is feared that acid water and heavy metals will enter the now-backfilled pit, and cause more problems as the groundwater table rises (and falls) during various seasons of the year. The committee is questioning the wisdom of plugging where there are plenty of old workings and volcanic fissures and cracks.

Which brings up the largest cost item: water treatment. An average of US$1.6 million per month has been spent since December, 1992. But it has not gone unnoticed that the same water is being “treated” over and over again, with little being discharged, because the classification of water quality being strived for is too high and does not match the quality of water that existed downstream of Summitville (because of natural weathering and turn-of-the-century mining) before Friedland set foot on the site. In all fairness to EPA, Summitville’s environmental problems are complex. Past mining caused many of the problems, but this does not mean EPA should exclude firms with mining expertise from helping in the cleanup.