HYDRO29057 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

COLORADO DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, Water Quality Corurol Division Rationale -Page 23 Perntit No. CO-0045675 V/I/. CHANGES TO PERM/T AND RAT/ONALE FOLLOWING PUBLIC NOTICE Public Notice Period, Comment Letters and Poblic Meeting: (Cont.): Responses to Public Meeting and Comment Letters: General Comments: Cornrnentors at the public meeting had multiple questions regarding allowing Battle Mountain to discharge by virtue of issuing the permit. There appeared to be some misunderstanding regarding the responsibilities of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment xatlr respect to issuing the permit. There were also many com»rents about !lre Colorado Department of Natural Resources mining permit jor dre original operation. Many ojdre canrnentors suggested that the CDPHE pennit should not be issued. Response: The Colorado Water Quality Control Ac[ (CWQCA) is the governing law for indrtstrinl and/or municipal discharge(s) ro surface waters and to alluvial groundwater that flows m the surface water. The CWQCA requires that every discharge to state waters (which includes groundwater and surface water) must !rm•e a pennit to regulate the quality of each Aischarge. In the case of direct discharge to surface rater, the pennit is issued by the CDPHE. !n the case ajgrourrdwater, the pennit is issued by the imp[ernenling agency with prirnarv authority of the facility. /n this case, the implementing agency jor discharges to groundwater is the Division ojMinerals and Geology (DMG) in the Colorado Department of Natural Resources. !t is irnponant to describe the interagency obligations betx~een the CDPHE and dre DMG. The DMG has an obligation under its authority m require the mining company to monitor and control discharges to the groundwater. Within the CWQCA, there is a provision pertaining to the issue of permitting jurisdiction. The provision was included in legislation and is referred to as Senate Bill (SB) /81. /n SB 181, [he state legislature required that two state agencies with overlapping jurisdiction must coordinate to eliminate the potential jor dual permits. Further, it requires the implementing agency to issue groundx•arer discharge permits that meet the substantive requirements of the CWQCA. That is to protect the rater quality. One of the important features of tIris act is that unpermitted discharges must either cease or be pernritted. When Bartle Mountain notified CDPHE that there was a surface water discharge from the West Pit, the notification was for the seeps that were Jloxdng to the surface water, not jar the discharge to groundwater. The CDPHE issued a Cease and Desist Order which required Battle Mountain to do whatever x~as necessary to stop the discharge as well as requiring the company to apply for a discharge pennit. The seeps were emanating Jrom a part ojlhe facility that did not include any snitling or beneficiation operations and did not include any waste from those processes. /n fact, the seeps were a result of the naturally-occurring groundwater flowing through dre waste rock in t/re backfilled West Pit. The only technically feasible way to eliminate the seeps x~as to pump the water out of the ground before it reached the Rito Seca. Once pumping began, the water then had to be managed. There xas no alternative jor managing the water but to discharge it to the creek after going through amechanical/chemical treatment process. Battle Mountain's original permit application included a request to pennit Discharge Point 00l (DP001), which is the discharge Jrom the treatment plant after treannent. The original draft pennit jor the facility imposed effluent limits on the discharge from the treatment plant which are more strict than those required jor publicly-owned treannent works in the Son Luis Valley. Specifically, t/re pennit is written so that the resulting effluent jrorn DP00/ does not degrade the quality of rlre water in the Rito Seco based on data from prior to the initiation of mining operations by BMR/. This policy, at the state and federal level, is the Antidegradation Policy and is rigorously followed by the WQCD in issuing permits. With respect to Discharge Point 002 (DP002), Battle Mountain's pennit application requested a permit jor the seepage front because there was in fact a discharge to surface water. However, the intent of the water management program outlined in the pennit application was to eliminate the discharge to the Rita Seco. /n the course ojwriting the pennit, the response actions initiated by Bartle Mountain had the predicted effect, which x•as to eliminate the surface seeps. DP001 became dre primary management nerus jor the water. The commentors noted that the DP002 w•as not clearly described, and that CDPHE did not propose any controls for the discharges associated with DP002. In the pennit application, DP002 was characterized as a seepage from. At that tune, the seepage front had a groundwater component and a surface water component. With the elimiwtion ojthe seeps to surface rater, the controlling pennit for DP002 is the pennit issued by DMG. OMC has, as parr of its pernrit, a groundwater compliance point, at which the effect of the dischmrge on dre groundwater is monitored. The DMG permit requires on- the-ground responses to remedy the impacts, iJfound. !n order for Battle Mountain to comply with the terms ojthe DMG pennit, lire company designed and implemented a program, identified in Technical Revision 26 (/R-026). This document is a condition of the DMG pennit and jonru the basis for remedial actions including the responses that Battle Mountain lras irnplernenled as of this date. The primary response action for protection ojgroundx•ater and surface water was designed and evaluated in TR-026. Bot/r agencies /rave reviewed TR-026 and determined that the response, along with treannent of the discharge through DP001 is a complete and technically appropriate program that meets the objectives of protecting the Rito Seco and the public health. Although this is an ertrernely complicated issue, the agencies have coordinated permits throughout the process and find that the combination of controlling dre outflow through a series of pumping wells, treating the water to remove the concentrations of constituents which are related to West Pit and Rito Seco alluvial groundwater, along with extensive monitoring and reporting, provide multiple lavers of em~ironmenta! and public health protections.