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the stream was indeed cloudy and promptly called Greg Lewicki of Lewicki and <br /> Accociates. Greg then called the author and I instructed him to notify all required <br /> relevant governmental agencies. Jerry Miller then instructed his employees to walk the <br /> river and look for any potential discharges from the mine. I immediately drove from my <br /> office in Denver to the mine site and met Michael Cunningham with the Colorado <br /> Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety. We then proceeded to the mine office <br /> where we learned that Jerry Miller employees had found what they thought were <br /> potential seeps or cloudy areas in the river just below the town of Alma sewage <br /> treatment plant. <br /> Since the potential discharge of sediment appeared to have concurrently happened with <br /> the startup of a new piece of process equipment (a trommel screen) on the edge of the <br /> mining pit with water being discharge to existing, but separate lower settling ponds next <br /> to the pit, it was thought that this may be the potential source of discharge. These ponds <br /> normally catch and contain any inadvertent overflow from Pond 4 or runoff from the site <br /> during heavy precipitation events. We then walked the entire lower settling pond area <br /> looking for any evidence of discharge from the site and found none. We did note that <br /> Pond 4 had recently discharged into the lower settling pond area. We then walked the <br /> impoundment side of Ponds 3 and 4 along the river and again found no signs of over <br /> topping or discharge. <br /> During our inspection of Pond 4, we inspected the 24" dia. CMP overflow pipe from <br /> Pond 4 to the lower settling ponds as well as the 12" PVC fill pipe from the pump house <br /> at the river. Chris, one of Jerry Millers employees, asked if the pond could have drained <br /> back through this pipe when the pump was turned off. I responded that the valve that <br /> diverts water either to the process plant or the pond is always left in the 'off' position to <br /> the pond and the `on' position to the plant when the pump is turned off to prevent such <br /> an occurrence and facilitate restart of the process plant. I also mentioned that there was <br /> a check valve in the line to prevent backflow. A discussion was had as to whether the <br /> check valve could have failed or could have debris lodged in it leaving it open. This was <br /> discussed and determined to be a possibility to be further looked into. As it was <br /> discovered the next day, I found out that I was mistaken and that there was no check <br /> valve in the line. <br /> We then proceeded to examine the river bank along the river south of the Alma water <br /> treatment facility to look for the reported sightings of cloudy seeps into the river. <br /> Increased cloudiness in this area was observed, but no discernable seep or discharge <br /> was noted although the west side of the river and the multiple beaver ponds in the river <br /> appeared to be more cloudy than the east side toward the mine. We discussed that <br /> barring an old mine adit having failed underground, it was highly unlikely that the <br /> amount of suspended solids shown in the river would have migrated underground from <br /> either the lower settling ponds or Pond 3 or 4 due to the distance of these ponds on the <br /> 2 <br />