No new Superfund site for Boulder County, despite what Federal Register says
BOULDER» The recent notice in the Federal Register could be somewhat alarming on the face of it, given its use of “Superfund site” and “Boulder County” in the same sentence.
But local officials and the Environmental Protection Agency agree that the Federal Register item is misleading: Although a local environmental cleanup project is in the offing, Boulder County does not have a previously undisclosed Superfund site.
The July 20 notice in the Federal Register — billed as “The Daily Journal of the United States Government”— carried the heading “Proposed Administrative Settlement Agreement and Order on Consent, Black Swan Restoration Reach Good Samaritan Superfund Site, Boulder County, Colorado.”
The notice solicits comments to be submitted on or before Aug. 20. Muddying the waters further, the full text of the notice, along with again repeating the term “Superfund site,” states that submitted comments “should reference the Black Swan Restoration Reach Good Samaritan Superfund Site, Central City, Gilpin County, Colorado.”
But county and federal officials agree: The project referenced is not a Superfund site. And it is in Boulder County, not neighboring Gilpin County.
Duc Nguyen, the EPA’S federal on-scene coordinator for the project, said use of the word “Superfund” was not accurate, and that the authors of the notice “I think did not have enough information.”
He theorized that its reference to Gilpin County was to a federal records repository, and affirmed that the project referenced is squarely situated in Boulder County — Fourmile Canyon, to be precise.
$1.5M to cleanup
Fourmile Wastershed Coalition Coordinator Maya Machamer described the project as a cleanup of mine tailings that were discovered in the course of preparations for flood restoration work in Fourmile Creek in the vicinity of 4300 Fourmile Canyon Drive.
“There was a house that was very badly damaged during the (2013) flood, which the county bought out and demolished, and when they were done, mine tailings turned up,” Machamer said. “It’s just downstream from an area where the EPA had removed a tailings pond in 2014, after the flood.”
The coalition secured about $1,509,640 in Community Development Block Grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development — the majority of which will go to stream restoration work. Any unused balance will be returned, she said.
“These tailings that we found, as far as we’re aware, they are not leeching into the stream. They are not causing water-quality issues and were completely covered by sediment deposited at the time of the flood,” Machamer said. “It is not an issue now but could be, if there was another flood.
“It’s on a big bend where the water likes to spread out. So we decided to integrate the removal of those tailings into our project.”
As for the EPA involvement, and the “Superfund” terminology, Machamer said, “The Fourmile Watershed Coalition got an administrative order on consent, which assists us with liability coverage. Anyone who is a non-federal entity, like us, or Trout Unlimited, seek out some sort of coverage or partnership with the EPA or the state. The EPA is providing an onsite coordinator so that we would do the work the same way they would do it. It’s not actually a Superfund site.”
Nearby mine
Nguyen affirmed Machamer’s explanation of the federal government’s involvement, and said, “Maya is correct. The site is not declared, or listed, as a Superfund site.”
He said the origin of the mine tailings, which consist of about 1,400 cubic yards of material, has not been determined. “The area was flooded, so the tailings could be from somewhere else,” he said. “However, there was the Black Swan Mill located nearby the area.”
The book “The Mining Camps — Salina & Summerville,” by M. M. Anderson — states that William H. Nicholson and James W. Yocum began construction of the Black Swan Mill below Salina along Fourmile Creek in October 1901. It was completed in June 1902 and operated into the 1930s.