Summitville mine employee indicted by federal grand jury

In the latest development in the Summitville debacle, a U.S. federal grand jury handed down an indictment against the former operator of the Summitville gold mine in Colorado and one of its former managers.

The indictment charges now-bankrupt Summitville Consolidated Mining (formerly owned by Galactic Resources) and its former environmental manager, Thomas Chisholm with one count of conspiracy, 32 counts of felony violation of the Clean Water Act, and two counts of making false statements.

The charges stem from operations at the heap-leach mine before the company filed for bankruptcy and left the site on Dec. 1, 1992.

At that time, the state of Colorado was forced to call in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to continue water treatment operations. Those treatment operations, together with reclamation, continue to this day.

Water quality standards for discharge into the local streams proved to be the downfall of the operation. By all accounts, however, the standards expected from Summitville were not based on water quality that existed before mining but, rather, were technologically derived.

Effluent limitations imposed on Summitville were 0.15 parts per million (ppm) total recoverable copper over a 30-day average, or not more than 0.3 ppm as a daily maximum, and 0.00068 ppm total recoverable silver over a 30-day average.

Failure to meet these standards, particularly for silver, forced Summitville to treat and retreat the water continuously. This ultimately led to bankruptcy and abandonment of the property.

While Galactic was in compliance with the standards at the time the site was abandoned, the indictments allege that, on numerous occasions, Summitville and Chisholm (and possibly other unknown parties) conspired to illegally discharge water that did not meet these standards from the mine into Wightman and Cropsy Creeks from May, 1989, to about June, 1991.

A warrant has been issued for Chisholm’s arrest. His whereabouts were unknown at presstime.

In mid-1993, the operations were conducted under Emergency Response provisions of the “Superfund” laws. The operation was therefore listed as a Superfund site and placed in a Remedial Action phase.

The work slated for this summer involves continued detoxification of the heap, transfer of the Summitville impoundment material back into the pit, engineering plans for permanent water-treatment facilities, and further water treatment.

To date, the EPA has spent US$70 million on cleanup, and it projects a total expenditure of US$120 million.

Robert Friedland, former chairman of Galactic, was not named in the indictment.