GENERAL30777 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

approaches, which would not stand up to scientific scrutiny. I certainly would not have been able to clean/close Pearl Harbor or the Rocky Flats watershed using the Lake Fork Watershed Group's approach to risk evaluation and cleanup. The public, and the scientific community, would never have allowed me to do so. This brings me to the focus that has gathered on Deadman Gulch and the Golden Wonder Mine. As Commissioners to Hinsdale County, you are aware of the economic benefits that the mine provides to the community. The mine employs local personnel and subcontractors and provides significant tax revenue based on the ore-economic return. Hopefully you have also had a chance to see the mine and perhaps even Deadman Gulch If you have, then you have likely formulated your own opinion regarding whether the mine poses an environmental concern. The mine site's footprint is small, even though it has seen decades of activity. Deadman Gulch is an ephemeral tributary that originates adjacent to the mine and contains an abundance of life. If you were to traverse the drainage you would find it to be clogged with trees, shrubs and other plant life which provides a good indicator of the quality of the system. The Lake Fork Watershed Group has had Deadman Gulch on its list of drainages for investigation. This year, finally, yielded sufficient flows to conduct water quality studies whereas previous years were devoid of flows. These water quality studies provided the Federal agency representatives in the group a significant opportunity to assess the mine site, but with the wrong result. Rather than conclude, consistent with the scientific evidence, that the mine does not have a negative impact on the watershed, the group has chosen confrontation and further regulatory scrutiny. I know from personal observation that the Lake Fork Watershed Group's activities have resulted in numerous site visits by regulators, further studies without reasonable cause, and an overabundance of regulatory oversight. Preliminary analytical results, in particular, have been misinterpreted, and presented to the community as evidence that there is a reason to be concerned about the mine and the Gulch, when in fact there isn't. The Lake Fork Watershed Group's interpretations ofthe data are false and have led the community to perceive a risk that does not in fact exist. In turn, the numerous and unwarranted regulatory visits and oversight have required the Golden Wonder Mine's operator, Au Mining, to spend valuable time and resources, and incur substantial consulting costs, in an effort to keep pace with the unwarranted regulatory burden. At the present stage, Au Mining is left to contend with a continuously increasing and changing set of regulatory hurdles that impede its ability to accomplish actual mining and revenue generation. I personally was on site at the mine when a federal agency representative insisted AU Mining could not install stormwater best management practices, which were already approved in a permit issued by the Colorado Department of Public Health and the