Silverton shifts toward support for Superfund

Attorneys for Silverton and San Juan County are in the process of drafting a letter to the governor in support of Superfund cleanup for its leaching, abandoned mines.

While the request still must be approved by the town’s elected officials next week, the action represents the most significant move since the Gold King Mine spill in August prompted cries for a large-scale federal intervention.

“It’s a giant step,” said Bill Gardner, Silverton’s town administrator.

For two decades, Silverton rebuffed federal Superfund dollars, fearing negative economic impacts, bureaucratic red tape and stigma. But now the town is signaling that it’s working to obtain a national hazard priority listing as soon as possible.

State health officials told town leaders in November that for the earliest possible Superfund designation they would have to endorse the program by the end of January to be considered for the program in the spring.

Gardner says the town has until Feb. 1 to send the letter to Gov. John Hickenlooper, who in turn is expected to take about a month before deciding to formally request the controversial remedy from the Environmental Protection Agency.

Next week, Silverton and San Juan County’s elected leaders will meet to discuss the letter and Superfund with each other and the town’s roughly 500 year-round residents. On Jan. 28, the leaders will take a final vote.

“It’s democracy in action,” Gardner said. “We are trying to ensure there’s absolute transparency.”

Ernie Kuhlman, chairman of the County Commission, says he doesn’t see any obstacles to the letter being approved.

The town’s leaders have been in talks with the EPA and Colorado health officials over the past several months about the extent of a hazard listing. Some locals have pushed back, questioning what Superfund could mean for their community.

Mark Esper, editor of The Silverton Standard and The Miner, the town’s newspaper, estimated that about 80 percent of the community now supports Superfund.

He said acceptance of the program really grew after Silverton leaders and county commissioners went on a three-day fact-finding mission in November to four of Colorado’s largest Superfund mine sites.

“I thought it was going to be a much tougher fight than it was,” Esper said of embracing a national priority listing. “That field trip was like the road to Damascus.”

While final details of what the cleanup would look like haven’t been made public, Silverton has stipulated that a Superfund designation not include the confines of their town or be named after their community.

Kuhlman said he still worried about stigma about a Superfund listing.

“I think everybody should be, to some degree,” he said. “We don’t want Silverton to be known as the Superfund site, necessarily. But we’ve got a problem that we’ve got to take care of.”

Meanwhile, heavy metals leach into the Animas River watershed from the mines that dot Silverton’s surroundings. A temporary water treatment plant erected by the EPA is treating the contaminants flowing from the Gold King at a cost of about $16,000 a week.

After the EPA-caused Gold King spill in August, and under immense pressure from its downstream neighbors, Silverton’s leaders have said it appears Superfund is their only option.

On Tuesday night, Durango’s City Council passed a resolution supporting Superfund for their upstream neighbors in Silverton.

The EPA-caused spill sent 3 million gallons of orange-yellow contaminants into the Animas River and through three states and the lands of two American Indian tribes.

The disaster thrust into focus the massive mine contamination problem facing Colorado and the nation.