‘Clean up your mess,’ citizens tell mine
By Tim Hull
Reproduced with permission of Green Valley News and Sun
“It is common knowledge in mining that metals follow sulfates,” said Allan MacDonald, a retired environmental consultant and author of a Green Valley Community Coordinating Council report that helped bring the sulfate plume to the public’s attention several years ago. “The sulfates are a harbinger of things to come.”
Direct challenge
MacDonald’s comments were a direct challenge to the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s contention that high concentrations of sulfate in water are a primarily aesthetic problem that causes only minor adverse health effects in the very old and the very young. That has kept sulfates and Total Dissolved Solids on the EPA’s secondary drinking water standards list—which offers suggested but unenforceable recommendations on safe levels— leaving little for the ADEQ to use against Phelps Dodge.
High concentrations of sulfate are likely a precursor to other, more dangerous substances seeping into the groundwater from the mine’s tailings impoundment about a mile southwest of
Also, high levels of sulfates make it more difficult to take arsenic out of the water, he said. Water companies across the nation must comply with new federal arsenic standards of 10 parts per billion by January 2006.
Many of Wednesday’s speakers decried the ADEQ’s draft APP— required for any industry that discharges contaminants into an aquifer—not only for its easy treatment of Phelps Dodge but for its tardiness.
“Here in Green Valley, we’ve done our part for the environment for 10 years piping the sulfate plume into our homes to bathe in, wash our clothes and dishes in—but not to drink, we all bought filtered water—and still the plume kept growing,” said Nancy Freeman, a local activist who has written and talked about the plume for several years.
No controls mentioned
“Not a single method for controlling the plume is mentioned in the APP. That is totally unacceptable,”
Freeman added. The draft APP requires Phelps Dodge to study the plume for about a year and report back to regulators. However, as Freeman pointed out, “that plume has been studied since the early 1980s... ADEQ knows exactly where the plume is and what it is doing.”
Freeman then quoted from an ADEQ inter-office memo dated June 10, 1994:
“Groundwater in the area flows to the east and northeast from the (Sierrita Mine’s) impoundment area,” the memo says. “The groundwater velocity is approximately 500 ft/year, yielding a travel time of approximately 10 years from the impoundment to the town of
That question went unanswered for more than a decade, during which time two Community Water of Green
The EPA’s secondary drinking water guideline for sulfates is 250 mg/l. But the draft APP does not require the mine to clean up the sulfate plume, nor does it say anything about ways to stop the plume from furtherdegrading the aquifer, Freeman and other speakers said.
Roger Featherstone, a representative from Earthworks, a group that serves as a watchdog for the hard rock mining industry, said that now was a perfect time for ADEQ to make the permit tougher, as copper prices are at a record high.
“There has been a steady decline of the aquifer, and the company knows it,” Featherstone said.
Wells too close
“The monitoring wells are too close to the community, and the APP does not address this. (ADEQ) must go back and redo the APP, and make it strong and make sure that the public’s health and safety is protected,” he added.
By its own admission, Phelps Dodge Sierrita Mine has known about the sulfate plume and “recognized its potential impact” since 1978, said John Brack, general manager of the Sierrita Mine.
Since then the mine has installed some 24 interceptor wells meant to catch the contaminants before they enter the aquifer at various points along the eastern edge of the tailing impoundment, and plans to install more in September of this year, Brack said. “We are committed to controlling the sulfate plume,” Brack said during Wednesday’s meeting. “We acknowledge that there’s a sulfate plume, and we acknowledge that it’s coming from our tailings dam.”
But such admissions don’t seem to be enough for many citizens, who told ADEQ that they’re frustrated with the mine’s stalling and the seeming impotence of state regulators.
“We expect you (the mine) to clean up your mess,” said June Wortman, a longtime
thull@gvnews.com | 547-9732