Most of the hundreds of thousands of hardrock mines that leak arsenic, lead, and other heavy metals into our waterways are located in the Western United States. It’s estimated, for example, that there are 106,000 such mines in Nevada and 8,800 in Idaho. About 100 persist in New Hampshire. (Courtesy of Trout Unlimited)
With little attention in the media, except in a few Western states, former President Joe Biden on Dec. 19 signed the Good Samaritan Remediation of Abandoned Hardrock Mines Act. It was bipartisan legislation, more than 20 years in the making. It has been hailed by some as “the most important environmental law to pass in decades.”
Biden signs law to clean up abandoned mines across the western U.S.
In New Hampshire, many people may be unfamiliar with the issue. We tend not to think of our state as having old abandoned mines that through past abuses or neglect are out there polluting our water supplies. Most of the hundreds of thousands of hardrock mines that leak arsenic, lead, and other heavy metals into our waterways are located in the Western United States. It’s estimated, for example, that there are 106,000 such mines in Nevada and 8,800 in Idaho. About 100 persist in New Hampshire.
While most of the abandoned mines in New Hampshire are not producing significant contamination, there are a few that have. The Ore Hill Mine in Warren, now on land owned by the White Mountain National Forest, was contaminating surface water, and in that case the federal government spent in excess of $3 million to remediate the situation and continues to spend around $40,000 a year to maintain the site and monitor it. Two other abandoned mines, the Madison Lead Mine and Mascot Mine in Gorham, continue to produce acidic water in ponds downstream. The level of lead in sediments of Mascot Pond is 200 times the natural level. In the pond below the Madison Mine, pond sediments of lead were found to be more than 75 times normal, levels of zinc 100 times normal, and mercury nearly double that in a nearby unimpacted pond.
Across the country, the reason most of these mines continue to pollute our waterways is complicated. Most of the mines were created many decades ago before any environmental protections governed their operation. After they were no longer producing economic amounts of material, they were abandoned. More recently, in some cases the public was left with the responsibility after the owners declared bankruptcy. Either way, the responsibility for these environmental nightmares defaulted to the government and the taxpayers. Unfortunately, public funding for correcting this problem has been hard to come by.
For many years some states, communities and conservation organizations have wanted to clean up the worst of the pollution from some of these mines. But they were stopped by two laws that essentially say “If you touch it, you own it.” Any party taking on cleanup would become responsible for the entire liability of the mine unless they could clean it up to 100% of the requirement of the Clean Water Act or Superfund Act. That goal is often technically and economically impossible.
But shouldn’t it be possible to take on the effort if the project can clean up most of the pollution? Until now, it hasn’t been the case.
As a result, these entities, “Good Samaritans,” have been wary of undertaking any efforts, lest they be made legally responsible for all the pollution as if they owned the mine.
In his advocacy for the legislation, co-sponsor U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico said: “For more than 25 years, Good Samaritans have tried to clean up abandoned mines but have faced significant hurdles and liability rules that hold them responsible for all the pre-existing pollution from a mine – despite having no involvement with the mines before their cleanup efforts.”
One hundred thousand miles of streams in the United States are impaired by this kind of pollution. Forty percent of the headwaters streams that feed rivers supplying drinking and agricultural water in the Western United States are contaminated by historical mining activity.
Cleaning up this mess would cost in excess of an estimated $50 billion. Federal spending ($2.9 billion) over the past decade has only scratched the surface of the problem.
The new law creates the opportunity for up to 15 low-risk pilot projects by third-party applicants. Trout Unlimited, a national conservation organization dedicated to protecting and enhancing clean water to benefit both our fisheries and communities, will likely be one of those applicants.
Trout Unlimited has been actively working on abandoned mine problems for decades, and has developed extensive expertise and knows how to raise the money for this work. But until now, it could not undertake the work because of the huge financial liability created by “if you touch it, you own it.”
Finally, good people and organizations that want to fix a problem they didn’t create will be allowed to do the work that’s needed.
This is a big win for the communities that depend on clean water and a healthy environment. It may not have been big news in New England where there are “only” 700 abandoned mines, but it sure is for the rest of the country.
Paul Doscher, a retired environmental scientist who lives in Weare, New Hampshire, is a member of the national board of trustees of Trout Unlimited.
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