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<br />L .......U......- a..1J.U --, J..J.... ~......- u........._ -'.....- <br /> <br />"There was hardly any place you could look on the <br />site that wasn't generating acid rock drainage," said <br />Hays Griswold, who led the EPA rescue effort. <br />"Wherever rainfall, snowfall would hit, you would <br />get puddles of it." <br /> <br />The snow was 50 inches deep and 150 percent of <br />normal on the peaks above Summitville, Griswold <br />said. <br /> <br />"50 we were expecting a huge spring runoff," <br />Griswold recalls. "We weren't disappointed when <br />spring came either." <br /> <br />The solution was to get the water treatment plant to <br />work, but EPA and a private subcontractor were <br />hardly more successful than Galactic had been, and <br />much of the polluted water was released to <br />streams. But the federal agency was able to fashion <br />an additional water treatment plant out of the <br />equipment that had been used to extract gold from <br />the cyanide solution. <br /> <br />The water levels stabilized behind the dike. <br /> <br />Drainage from the old mine workings were plugged <br />to halt the flow of acid water into creeks, and the <br />water was routed through the treatment plants. <br /> <br />Then, in a campaign of massive earth-moving, the <br />mounds of acid-forming waste rock were piled back <br />into the pit from which they had been dug and <br />covered with clay. Other areas have been <br />revegetated. <br /> <br />But Victor Ketellapper, the EPA official who now <br />heads the cleanup, said that the treatment plants <br />can't handle the huge spring runoff, and that some <br />acidic water still gets into creeks. <br /> <br />Wyman, the Galactic executive, has concluded that <br />the mine was doomed from the start. <br /> <br />"You could fiddle with it all you wanted, but you <br />never got over the problem that it was a dumb idea <br />to start (the mine) high up in the Rocky Mountains," <br />he said. <br /> <br />http://www.denver-rmn.comlnews/0507 smmt !.shtm! <br /> <br /> <br />5/7/00 <br />