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~~I IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII 999 When Battle Mountain Gold announced plans to use tons of cyanide to extract gold from a hillside above the town of San Luis, the locals were told not to worry. Battle Mountain, a Houston-based mining giant was going to nrn the cleanest operation southern Colorado had ever seen. At numerous public hearings, company executives stressed that their extraction process wouldn't endanger Rito Seco Creek, the town's main water supply, which runs through the thine site. And the ponds created to contain mine tailings wouldn't be a danger to local wildlife. "Elk and deer could drink that water," Battle MountG~ypp operations manager Gary Dodson td)d a Denver Post reporter in 1990. "I could drink that water." 11tat was then.'Ihis is now. After bazely one year of operation, Battle Mountain has been fined a whopping $168,000 by the Colorado Mined Land Reclamation Division (NERD), one of the largest assessmetrls of its kind ever imposed by "1Ne have no faith in the #rask ~ecer~ This is not a mine operating as anticipated." the state, for excessive cyanide in its holdiggponds.'Ltte violation dates back to last September, possibly earlier, but state regulators didn't Team of the problem until two months ago. 11te ponds are now so poisonous that fire mine employs guards armed with shotguns and a propane cannon [o scare away waterfowl that might be attracted to the glittering cyanide soup. Although the mime continues to operate, it's uncertain whether the ponds will be sufficiently detoxified to meet a sixty"day compliance deadline imposed by the MLRD, and company officials aren't exactly volunteering to quaff aglass of the stuff. To date there have been no confirmed wildlife deaths from cyanide poisorting at the mine and no evidence of off-site contamination. But the situation is far from reassuring to residents of Colorado's oldest town, many of whom vigorously opposed the mine from the start and have become. deeply suspicious not only of the nrirre operators' claims but also of the state's enforcement efforts. "It's all a big coverup," says Maria Mondragon-Valdez, codirector of People's Alternative Energy ServKes, a community activist group in San Luis. "What they said they'd do and whet they did, there's a big gap between them." 'Ihe controversy over cyanide extends well beyond San Luis. Miters have used cyanide leaching to exllad gold and silver from Iow-grade ore for more than a century, but only in the past two decades have refinements in the.technique made it econorru feasible to rework old mines p use considered played out 'Ihe new technology has sparked a renaissance in gold mining across the West-and resulted in dozens of environmental blunders, too. According to the federal General Accounting Office, more than 9,0110 cyanide-related wildlife deaths occurred atgold-mining sites in Arizorr~t~ldornla~ttti~evada from 1984 to 1989. In Colorado, a previous operator at the San Luis site was shut down in 1975 after cyanide leaked into the Rito Seco, ]filling fish over asix-mile stretch. Tn recent months the MLRD has fined the operator of a huge open-pit gold mine in southwestern Colorado a fatal of $130,000 for a series of cyanide 1 s that are blamed for killing every 4sh -m a seventeen-mile portion of the sa River, cleanup costs at the Summitville site are pegged as high as $15 million. Battle Mountain's operation was supposed to be different In the wranglings over permits and water rights, the companyy committed to a contained `Watleach" method in stateof-the-art ore-processing m~ rather than the "heap-leach" system used at Summitville. Since most of the cyanide would be reclaimed {rrd recycled through the vats before art ever reached the tailings pond, the e's permit stated that cyanide levels San Luis. Vaney gold diggers choose their poison.