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L<B>and<B><B>mine<B> Page 10 of 20 <br /> engineers had anticipated. <br /> Workers pumped out the leaching area, then began repairs.As they did so, <br /> ore was being scooped from the face of South Mountain. <br /> • <br /> Shortly after midnight on June 4, 1986, leaching began, even though parts <br /> of the plastic were still not finished. <br /> One week later, monitors detected small amounts of cyanide solution under <br /> the plastic liner. Workers pumped the contaminated water back into the <br /> system and continued to spray cyanide on ore. <br /> Leonard reported the leak to state officials,who noted the problem but took <br /> no action. <br /> Meanwhile, plans went forward for a grand opening on July 11, 1986. <br /> Friedland arranged for his parents to go to Summitville for the event,which <br /> local officials also attended. <br /> "We were very proud of it," Friedland said in a recent interview. "I told my <br /> mother, 'Look, the company that's building this mine has George Shultz as <br /> its president, formerly the secretary of state, and Cap Weinberger, the <br /> former secretary of defense, is general legal counsel for Bechtel. Bechtel's <br /> stamp was on all the engineering, and Bechtel's senior representatives were <br /> there." <br /> But the glee of the opening was short-lived. The dignitaries had barely left <br /> before another cyanide leak was discovered. This time, the poison was in <br /> the groundwater, meaning liquid was getting through the layer of clay, as <br /> well as the plastic. <br /> "This was something major," mine manager Leonard recalled. "This was a <br /> III <br /> true leak." <br /> Opinions vary on whether the leaks were caused by the avalanche or by the <br /> faulty construction during the winter. <br /> Finding out for sure would have meant removing more than 100,000 tons of <br /> ore—along with clay and mud—already heaped on top of the plastic, <br /> Leonard said. The heavy-digging equipment would have gouged even more <br /> holes in the liner. <br /> Besides, Galactic was in no position to do anything that didn't bring <br /> immediate production of gold. <br /> "We had spent most of the money(borrowed from Bank of America)," <br /> Leonard said. "There were problems with creditors. That was a bad point in <br /> the year." <br /> Instead of fixing the problem, the company decided to pump the polluted <br /> groundwater back into the pool of cyanide solution behind the dike. <br /> Thomas Krasovec, an engineer with the Canadian consulting firm that <br /> designed the leaching facility, recalls advising Friedland to remove the ore <br /> and fix the liner before piling on more ore. Krasovec, who was educated at <br /> the Colorado School of Mines, said he warned Friedland that unless the <br /> damage was repaired,water would continue to seep under the plastic <br /> sheeting and further erode the clay. <br /> "Mr. Friedland stated that continued gold production was necessary to the • <br /> financial survival of the project," Krasovec said in a sworn statement. <br /> http://www.denver-rmn.cominews/0507smmtl.shtml 5/7/00 <br />