U.S. Superfund sites

One of the biggest factors in the dark history of sulfide mining is how frequently mining companies are wrong about what their impacts on water quality will be.  Thousands of miles of streams in the western and mountain states are polluted with runoff from abandoned mines. 

The current backlog of unfunded Superfund pollution sites exceeds $2.1 billion.  Congress authorizes a few million dollars per year, a rate that would never catch up with the magnitude of the ongoing toxic acid mine drainage problem.  Prudent public policy would avoid creating more public environmental clean-up liability until the past financial and ecoogical debts are satisfied.

One peer-reviewed study found that, while all projects that were reviewed predicted they would not pollute, at least 76 percent of the time, they still did.  The same study found that 89 percent of mines that have polluted said they would not.

"The industry’s track record of not paying to clean up its messes is long and shameful."  A few examples include:

• Zortman-Landusky Mine, Montana – $33 million and counting 
• Summitville Mine, Colorada – $185 million and $1.5 million/year
• Grouse Creek Mine, Idaho – $53 million

These and other factual horror stories on the damage already being done by acid mine drainage are well-documented.  For one national source, see EARTHWORKS website search on 'acid mine drainage'.  Policy-makers should be very careful to guard against repeating these mistakes.

In our region, there are few if any examples of successful pollution prevention, especially long-term.

• On Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula, copper mills discharged an estimated 200 million tons of copper-contaminated waste directly into Torch Lake, reducing its volume by 20 percent and leaving a toxic threat to fish and anyone who eats the fish. Information can be found in the Mining Waste National Priorities List Summary Report, Torch Lake, Houghton County, Michigan.
• In Ontario, the Geco and Willroy mines, owned by Noranda Minerals Inc., near Manitouwadge generate acidic runoff laced with heavy metals that must be treated in perpetuity. Metal loadings will steadily increase downstream over time. Geco operated from 1957-1995 and Willroy from 1955- 1977.
  According to reports in 1995, Inco's Shebandowan Mine west of Thunder Bay contributes nickel loadings from the minesite (including mine drainage to creeks on site) that are ten times higher than background inputs.
  From: "under Mining Superior: A Report on Mining Activities and Impacts in the Lake Superior Basin," by Northwatch (Summer 2001). northwatch@onlink.net
• In Wisconsin, the Flambeau mine plan was hailed as a model sulfide mine in our region that would not pollute.  Yet is is still has an active seep that exceeds water quality standards, over 10 years after active mining ended and the company had extracted its billions in profits.