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L<B>and<B><B>mine<B> Page 3 of 20 <br /> In January 1993, Galactic declared bankruptcy, turning the property over to <br /> the state, which passed it to the EPA. By that time, Friedland had left the <br /> company, moving on to make millions from a nickel mine in Canada. <br /> In 1996, the state and federal governments sued Friedland to recover more <br /> than$150 million in cleanup costs. The state also is seeking about$40 <br /> million to cover the cost of treating water at the site for the foreseeable <br /> future. <br /> U.S. District Court Judge Edward W. Nottingham is expected to set a trial <br /> date later this year or early next year in the civil suit. <br /> Separately, U.S.Attorney Tom Strickland may be considering a grand jury <br /> investigation of Friedland that would consider possible criminal charges. <br /> Although many of the documents refer to grants of immunity awarded former <br /> company executives, Strickland will neither confirm nor deny an <br /> investigation. <br /> Two low-level workers at the mine each were sentenced in 1998 to six <br /> months in jail and$20,000 in fines for violating federal clean water laws. <br /> Friedland denies wrongdoing, arguing in court documents that while he <br /> raised money to build and run the mine, the pollution was caused by failures <br /> of engineering and equipment controlled by others in the company. <br /> "I look forward to bringing this to trial," he said in an interview with the <br /> Denver Rocky Mountain News last month. "I look forward to actually <br /> exposing what actually happened here to the light of day." <br /> But back in 1984, no one was thinking about legal implications when <br /> • <br /> Galactic sought a mining permit. They were thinking about opportunities. <br /> The economic boom of the 1970s had gone bust with the collapse of the <br /> domestic oil industry. Office buildings stood vacant in Denver's downtown. <br /> And Galactic was dangling 100 jobs in a part of the state with double-digit <br /> unemployment. <br /> Executive dreams of an empire <br /> The Summitville disaster unfolded in several chapters. The Denver Rocky <br /> Mountain News has pieced together the story from court documents, <br /> interviews and sworn statements by key players to state and federal <br /> officials. The story has never been fully told until now. <br /> It begins with state officials in the mid-1980s, a time when mine regulators <br /> felt overwhelmed. They had only six inspectors to monitor 1,500 mines. <br /> So they were in no position to run background checks on a company that <br /> offered to bring paying jobs to the San Luis Valley, the poorest part of the <br /> state even in good economic times, said Chips Barry,then assistant director <br /> of the state Natural Resources Division and a member of the board that <br /> granted mining permits. <br /> "I don't think we knew anything about who these people were," Barry said. <br /> In fact, no one, not even other Canadians, knew much about Vancouver- <br /> http://www.denver-rmn.com/news/0507smmtl.shtml 5/7/00 <br />