CAÑON CITY RESIDENTS RAISE RED FLAG ON SITE’S FOUL ODOR

Foul fumes worry Cañon City residents as new owner aims to jumpstart Superfund cleanup

One of the nation’s slowest Superfund cleanups near the city, a uraniumcontaminated mill site, has been reportedly emitting a foul and unexplained smell.

CAÑON CITY» Colorado residents near a uraniumcontaminated mill site that the government has let sit for 34 years as one of the nation’s slowest Superfund cleanups have been alerting authorities for six weeks about a foul and unexplained odor.

This is happening amid signs of progress at the polluted property, following a unique deal that let longtime operator Cotter Corp. pay a Coloradobased turnaround specialist to become the owner of the 2,538acre site at the base of the Wet Mountains near the Arkansas River.

The new owner, Colorado Legacy Lands, has just proposed aggressive “early action” — ahead of the full, legally required Environmental Protection Agency cleanup — to remove uranium, molybdenum and other contaminants in soil and groundwater, which flows under Cañon City toward the river.

But the odor reported by scores of residents and local leaders since July 23 is stirring fears. Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment officials have told community leaders that state air experts are investigating, trying to determine whether the odor is related to activities on the site by Cotter, a subsidiary of defense contractor General Atomics.

“I absolutely don’t blame residents for feeling that way. This needs to be addressed,” Colorado Legacy Lands managing director Jim Harrington said in an interview. “But I don’t want to see all the good progress we’re making get derailed on the smell issue.”

The foul fumes wafting into south Cañon City have caused watery eyes, and residents said they’ve gone to doctors seeking help. Fremont County sheriff’s deputies have been responding to complaints, ruling out suspected methamphetamine cooking, and fire code enforcers have inspected inside homes — to no avail.

“Until we know what it is, this is a public safety issue,” said Fremont County Commissioner Tim Payne, who lives in the area where residents have reported the strongest stench.

“It’s a combination of sulfur, sewer, and there’s a chemical aroma. It is overpowering. It makes your eyes water,” Payne said. “We would like to get the site cleaned up so that there is not a health and safety issue.”

Cotter in March completed the deal that reverses a typical property sale. Instead of receiving money, Cotter paid Colorado Legacy Lands an undisclosed amount to take over as owner — and assume all obligations for environmental cleanup at the uranium mill site, where federal authorities in 1984 declared an envi

“It’s a combination of sulfur, sewer, and there’s a chemical aroma. It is overpowering. It makes your eyes water.” Tim Payne, county commissioner

ronmental disaster and launched a Superfund cleanup. Cotter in 1988 signed a consent agreement to conduct the cleanup.

This situation in Colorado looms as a test of the Trump administration’s resolve in carrying out a Superfund enforcement initiative to speed cleanups at 1,330 Superfund sites nationwide. EPA officials have declared they will complete cleanups even though Trump’s budget has cut funding, saying they will rely on better decisionmaking, leadership and management.

Cold War remnant

For decades, controversy over Cotter’s responsibility, bureaucratic inertia and cleanup complexities have delayed action in Colorado. State health officials let Cotter keep the mill open for decades — even after the federal disaster declaration in 1984.

The mill served national Cold Warera purposes. Cotter processed uranium from 1958 to 1978 for nuclear weapons and fuel, discharging liquid waste, including radioactive material and heavy metals, into 11 unlined ponds. Those ponds were replaced in 1982 with lined waste pits.

Earthen dams and a pump at the low end of Cotter’s property, about 1K miles from Cañon City’s Lincoln Park neighborhood, control water and move it to a pond for treatment. A leakprone waste pipeline in 2015 spilled about 1,800 gallons.

Well tests in the area determined that groundwater contained elevated uranium (577 parts per billion, above a 30 ppb health standard) and molybdenum (1,840 ppb, above a 100 ppb standard). Uranium is a heavy metal linked to health problems ranging from kidney failure to lung cancer. Too much molybdenum can cause headaches, fatigue, loss of appetite and goutlike pain in the muscles and joints.

Cotter officially closed the mill in 2010 and has dismantled most of its industrial buildings. Colorado Citizens Against Toxic Waste, a community group, contends the lined pits are leaking.

Federal authorities initially failed to conduct a human health survey that is required at Superfund sites. An Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry review eventually was done to satisfy that requirement. Cotter has settled legal claims by residents suffering from cancer and other health problems.

Congress in 1980 created the nation’s Superfund system for dealing with environmental disasters, passing the Comprehensive Environmental Remediation Compensation and Liability Act. Lawmakers updated that law in 1986. But hundreds of cleanups have languished for decades on the National Priority List due to limited funding for cleanups and difficulties getting things done.

Once the EPA launches a Superfund cleanup, agency experts are supposed to assess human health risks and complete a “remedial investigation” and feasibility study laying out options. A remedial investigation typically takes years — let alone actual cleanup. At the Cotter site now owned by Colorado Legacy Lands, a remedial investigation has not been completed.

Cañon City residents have suggested remedies such as installing solar panels at the site.

Jumpstart cleanup

Colorado Legacy Lands officials this month declined to say how much Cotter paid them to take ownership of the site and conduct a full cleanup, to be done in partnership with Legacy Land Stewardship and Alexco Environmental Group. Colorado officials said they did not know how much was paid, but the state officials tasked with oversight required an $8.9 million financial guarantee from Colorado Legacy Lands to ensure completion of required work.

The deal in March also transferred ownership to Colorado Legacy Lands of Cotter’s 580acre Schwartzwalder uranium mine site west of metro Denver along Ralston Creek, a source of drinking water. The Schwartzwalder mine has been leaching uranium into the creek.

“This is not a closed investigation. It is one of those where people are still trying to figure it all out,” Meghan Hughes, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, told local leaders at a meeting last week in Cañon City, saying three days of air testing were inconclusive.

“If you are still smelling this smell, then by all means reach out. … We’re doing everything we can to determine whether it is related to Cotter.”

Colorado Legacy Lands officials unveiled an ambitious new plan to jumpstart the cleanup, which would require approval from the EPA and the state health department.

This proposed “early action” work includes:

• Digging up and removing “known contaminated soils” containing uranium and molybdenum that can spread into groundwater.

• Draining waste ponds and installing modern evaporation ponds.

• Testing soil at the site for TCE (trichloroethylene) that Cotter and state health officials documented in 2011 in an effort to prevent it from spreading in groundwater. TCE is a sweetsmelling industrial solvent that can attack the nervous system, leading to problems with hearing, seeing and balancing, in addition to liver and kidney problems.

• Squeezing massive waste piles at the site to force out contaminants and reduce the flows into groundwater.

• Stopping groundwater plumes containing uranium and molybdenum from spreading under Cañon City toward the river by pumping out contaminated groundwater.

“This is meant to deal with known problems that we perceive right now,” Harrington, the Colorado Legacy Lands managing director, told members of a community advisory group at a meeting last week. “I just know I want to start it. Ultimately there will be a formal review process. I am just starting this. I would love to hear feedback.”

“Ticking time bomb”

A handful of concerned residents, disgruntled yet attentive, looked on as a couple dozen designated community advisory group members sat around tables in a county meeting room with officials from the EPA, the state health department, Cotter, Fremont County, Alexco and Colorado Legacy Lands.

The EPA and Colorado health department officials, who had been informed two weeks earlier of Colorado Legacy Lands’ “early action” proposals, told residents that this sort of work has been done before.

“These are all offtheshelf technologies that have been proven,” EPA representative Mark Aguilar said.

The residents at the meeting said their goal is to ensure the best cleanup possible. Jeri Fry, a longtime member of Coloradans Concerned about Toxic Waste, raised concerns that “if you start mixing stuff with other stuff, then it’s going to be harder to clean up.”

Aguilar said that “when we do early action, we are reducing risks at the site.”

For years, state and federal officials have said risks to human health are minimal as long as residents do not drink well water.

Colorado Citizens Against Toxic Waste director Sharyn Cunningham emphasized a need for “an open discussion” and less government paperwork.

Harrington said: “That’s what I am looking for.”

Yet identifying and dealing with the odor loomed foremost. “This has happened before,” Fry said, referring to incidents during the 1960s. “We need to have air monitoring. We’ve got people who are really upset.”

Cunningham said: “This is happening on a Superfund site. So we cannot ignore it.”

Cotter manager Steve Cohen and Harrington told The Denver Post they don’t know of any activities on the site that could be producing the odor. They said defunct coal mining tunnels cut under the site, and noted heavy rainfall on July 23.

Meanwhile, Marcus Zweig was picking up his four children from school. Zweig said the odor has surfaced near the house he bought four years ago “knowing about the site.”

The odor “could be anything. Molds? If they do turn that site around, that’s a good thing.”

Longtime resident Chris Brady, who grew up in a house near where the odor has proved overwhelming, was checking on his parents. He said their doctor told them to stay indoors and keep doors and windows closed.

“It’s like a chemical sulfur rotten egg smell. Definitely not sewer. Definitely not stagnant water. It starts in the evening,” Brady said.

“This is my home. I’d like to stay here. I hate to think we are living on a ticking time bomb of contaminants. I’d like to see the site cleaned up as soon as possible.”