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1 f^~~ l' CO~Orad SPTe< G1ipPir'S r•, 1 1336 G1enam~~'r'~' Le i-~3.s71~511 l ~f13JlL2~`~. ~ °~ ~,u-+°~~ trw~" ~t; .~~-. ~ Y L' SIERRA, San Lu Colorado • December 11, 1998 w~__ _ - l -. - . ~~ Gold=.=the:price to pay. ~' Although the decade of the 90's has only one more year to go.before it becomes history, it probs- . bly was not the most productive ten years for Costilla government, in some ways. The mainstay of county value is agriculture, .. , and it did not change very much. Agriculture, as a class, stayed pretty flat. Vacant land, where the bulk of - tr1e value is to be.found, also remained pretty.even. And commercial property value increased last year. ":'The new potato processing plant in Fort Garland added good value as did the new motel in the same . place. The new motel in San Luis wil} also add good value. When it began operations several yeazs ago, Battle Mountain Gold brought in new tax revenue, but its'c]osing the mine five years later plunged the county into an even worse situation because it could not make up the difference on revenue loss from the mine's ' closing. Now the mine's west pit has sprung a leak that is in danger of sending contaminated water into the Rito Seco Creek-if it hasn't done so already. This is happening in spite of repeated assurances from BMG's environmental expert, Ann' Baldridge, that there would be no problems with the operation or the tailings it left behind. According to Baldridge, it was just a matter of remediation where any problem could be solved- much [ike injecting a syringe into the earth and curing the problem. Throughout the western U.S., greedy mine operators are having to cope with problems they have created by using the open-pit, cyanide leach process to extract gold. iiiiiiiiiiiu iii 999 ~~ M ~- Here at the San Luis mine, the pit water escap- ing into the Rito Seco could be contaminating the cieek with sulfate, manganese and a high level of total dis- solved solids. The mine will probably.try to convince its critics that these are harmless elemerts, and they very well maybe when they are in their natural states. However, the Curren: problem has nothing to do with cyanide, another element contaminating the mine site at the tailings pond and the toxic layer. Robert Moran, PhD, a geochemist and hydroge- ologistwith 26 years experience, contends that cyanide can break down into harmless substances. He also . says,"That is only half of the story;' and adds that ' cyanide also reacts readily. ,vith many other chemical elements, producing a wide variety of toxins." He dis- cusses the chemistry and toxicity of cyanide related compounds found in leach rune effluents. He tells about recent cyanide related mining accident and he presents a case study analysis of a recent, tragic cyanide-related accident in Kyrgyzsstan. Back in San Luis, BMG.is reporting the leak at 15 gallons of water per minute, but catching and returning 400 gallons per minute from the seep to the pit. Mine technicians are scrambling to keep this coma- . urinated water out of the Into Seco. Since the pit is going to be there for a long time, (forever). It seems that the slate Mined Land Recla- mation Board (NLRB) shouli be looking at what it is going fo take to keep this le~.kage contained for as long as the tailings remain as a scurce of contamination of the people's water. The NLRB should have heeded the people's concern at the proper time when it issued BMG its permit. -Maclovio C. Martinez ' ~n wi6.~ ~f~ 1(•pstiNe pou~l ThursdsY.