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Mine site cleanup begins in remote part of Gunnison County

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Barren swaths of forest ground where mill tailings have washed down the landscape from mining infrastructure near Taylor Park Reservoir in Gunnison County. Photo courtesy Trout Unlimited
NEWS
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — One of the 23,000 abandoned mines in Colorado sits on an old road near Taylor Park Reservoir in Gunnison County.

The Forest Hill mill, part of a mining operation that was last active in 1955, was used to refine hundreds of thousands of pounds of lead and other heavy metals. Today, piles of mine waste called mill tailings are contributing to high levels of lead and arsenic in the soil and water at the site, according to studies by the U.S. Forest Service. 

Those elevated levels present a significant health risk to people and the environment, said a spokesperson for the Forest Service in an email to Rocky Mountain PBS. Arsenic in the site’s soil and water was found to be up to 135 parts per million, and lead was found to be up to 14,200 ppm.  The Environmental Protection Agency standard for safe levels of arsenic in drinking water is 0.010 ppm. The standard for lead is 0.015 ppm.

This month, national conservation group Trout Unlimited began working on a project to clean up and safely store Forest Hill’s mill tailings. Conservationists are prioritizing this site because potential wildfires could create flash flooding conditions, which would spread the heavy metals across the landscape.

“There's a lot of long-term need to conserve high alpine tributaries like Taylor Creek and in this case Trail Creek, which is the stream that flows through the site,” said Tanner Banks, who manages restoration programs in Colorado at Trout Unlimited.

The work started mid-August and will take 10 weeks to complete, Banks said. Trout Unlimited will monitor the site for plant and ecological health in the years to come.

“[In] our species of concern — trout, macroinvertebrates, algae, various kinds of receptor groups —  there is the potential for these metals to be absorbed into tissues and then travel a wider distance,” said Banks.

Recreation at the reservoir and public lands in the area has increased over the last five years, Banks said.

A survey of the old mine infrastructure completed in 2018 showed the higher concentrations of heavy metals. In 1945, the Forest Hill Mine was part of operations in the area that recovered 233,000 pounds of lead, worth $23,000, according to a contemporary publication from the state mineral resources board.
The Forest Hill mine and mill were part of the Taylor Park district, according to a book of mining resources from the Colorado Mineral Resource Board in 1947.
The Forest Hill mine and mill were part of the Taylor Park district, according to a book of mining resources from the Colorado Mineral Resource Board in 1947.
Today, the white and tan piles of rock sit like a scab on the landscape of forest and shrubs. Plants try to make progress along the edges of the blemish, but are halted by high concentrations of harsh metals.

The physical work for the project includes using heavy equipment to move an estimated 10,000 cubic yards of material, Banks said. It will be safely stored nearby, but farther away from the creek and river. Then, crews will replant native foliage on the site to bolster the landscape’s resilience to erosion and flooding. The forest service will plant 3,000 lodgepole pines as part of the project.

The heavy equipment and replanting work will cost about $750,000, Banks said. That cash comes from Trout Unlimited fundraising, grants for watershed health and the Forest Service budget. Trout Unlimited received a grant from the state water conservation board, part of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, for $330,000. USFS contributed $480,000, according to the grant application for the project. 
Map showing where mill tailings have washed down the landscape near Trail Creek and the Taylor River above Taylor Park Reservoir. Screenshot from USFS site evaluation document.
Map showing where mill tailings have washed down the landscape near Trail Creek and the Taylor River above Taylor Park Reservoir. Screenshot from USFS site evaluation document.
In 2020, Trout Unlimited worked on a similar project at the Atlas mill site southwest of Ouray. After the reclamation work, small, dense fields of native grasses thrive near the creek in Yankee Boy Basin, where barren patches of mill tailings used to sit.

That work in Ouray was a project of the Uncompahgre Watershed Partnership, a nonprofit concerned with water and landscape health in the San Juan mountains. Near Sneffels Creek, the work included revegetation of four acres of land that used to be saturated with mine waste.
Type of story: News
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
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