Red Lodge Clearinghouse

The site last week was added to the U.S. EPA's National Priorities List of Superfund sites, which will provide federal funding for the cleanup while EPA tries to recover costs from the responsible parties, according to an EPA statement.

The tunnel and the rock pile are the two largest contributors of toxic heavy metals in the Willow Creek drainage, according to EPA. The site is located along West Willow Creek, which flows into Willow Creek, a Rio Grande tributary.

The site is located about 1 mile north of Creede, a historic mining town with a population of about 380, according to the 2000 census. The town worked for years to clean up the wreckage of the silver mining industry, which had brought prosperity and a population boom to Mineral County in the 1890s, but eventually decided to solicit federal help.

Community tried to steer clear of Superfund listing

In 1997, area residents formed the Willow Creek Reclamation Committee, a nonprofit group that tried to keep the area off EPA's list of hazardous sites in need of federal cleanup. "They wanted to explore other ways of cleaning up the watershed without being placed on the Superfund site list," said Carishma Gokhale-Welch, director of the committee.

Members of the community, which relies heavily on tourism, hoped in part to steer clear of the stigma attached to Superfund sites, Gokhale-Welch said. "Who wants to go to a Superfund site?"

The committee's efforts involved moving from upstream to downstream, isolating contaminants to prevent them from entering the watershed. But they faced a roadblock at the end of the line -- the Nelson Tunnel. The tunnel is the single largest polluter in the watershed, Gokhale-Welch said, which was too much for the small organization to tackle.

For one thing, taking on cleanup efforts at the tunnel -- a point source of pollution -- would come with serious legal implications.

"If you touch a point source, if you try to clean it up, you are responsible to try to keep that clean for the rest of its life," Gokhale-Welch said. "It's just not plausible."

EPA proposed adding the Nelson Tunnel and the associated Commodore Waste Rock site to the priority list in April. The 5-acre site includes the Nelson Tunnel, a draining adit that connects to West Willow Creek, and the Commodore Waste Rock pile, which surrounds the mouth of the adit (Land Letter, May 1).

"It's a very complex problem, and it's going to be very expensive," said Gwen Christiansen, an EPA scientist and listing coordinator. "Listing was the only viable option to ensure permanent cleanup for the Nelson Tunnel and the Commodore Waste Rock."

EPA will explore every viable option for cleanup, including creating wetlands to clean up the water, building a water treatment plant and combining a variety of cleanup strategies, Christiansen said.

"The hope is that they're able to bring in the resources that a small nonprofit like us cannot and will ultimately be successful in cleaning up that site," Gokhale-Welch said.

Creede residents hope EPA learned from Leadville

But residents of Creede have followed EPA's cleanup efforts in another historic mining town -- nearby Leadville, Colo. -- and were not all pleased with the results. Since EPA assumed responsibility for the cleanup more than two decades ago, critics have blasted the agency for failing to delist the site after so many years.

"When you think of Leadville, you think of a Superfund site," said Gokhale-Welch.

But she remains confident that the Nelson Tunnel and Commodore Waste Rock listing will be different. Instead of listing the whole town as a Superfund site -- which was the case in Leadville -- only the tunnel and pile will be listed.

Christiansen of EPA agreed. "It's a very different site than Leadville," she said. "Leadville has residential soil contamination and it's a much larger site."

Gokhale-Welch said the community's response to the listing will depend on how fast it will be cleaned up. "I don't know if people are ... jumping with joy [over the listing]," she said.

She added that the community could have to wait a while before it sees results. "The EPA is a big organization. It takes time to mobilize, and it takes time to get stuff done," Gokhale-Welch said.

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