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~: • May 11, 2000 From: Fred Luiszer ~EC~~~~~ MAY 15 2000 ~ivisian of Minerals & Geology Reference: Reopening the Castle Concrete Quarry Attention: Carl Mount Division of Minerals and Geology 1313 Sherman St. Denver, CO 80203 Subject • iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii ~`1.~1'b ~. I have heard rumors that the Castle Concrete Quarry, which is located west of Colorado Springs and north of Manitou Springs, will reopen sometime in the near future. From information that I gathered from a Colorado Springs resident, who went to the quarry to inform them of a possible unadjudicated dump on their property (The EI Paso county health department is working on this), I am forced to conclude that the quarry management and others believe that the water that drains into the dosed basin, in which the quarry is located, does not drain to the springs of Manitou. Work that I did during the completion of my dissertation, The Genesis of Cave of the Winds (Luiszer, 1997), indicates that all water that seeps into the Manitou Formation in the Manitou Embayment eventually resurges at the springs in Manitou Springs, where it drains into Fountain Creek to become part of the Colorado Springs water supply. Several year ago I dye traced Williams Canyon Creek, which is located about 1 kilometer south of the quarry. The dye took about 85 days to show at the Ute Chief Gusher, which is located about 1.5 kilometers southwest of the quarry. This would suggest that water draining into the quarry basin would resurge at the springs in about 6 to 9 months. When I did my studies in the early 90s the quarry had just shut down and I assumed that when I discovered this little problem that it was a mute point. To my chagrin, however, it appears that the quarry is about to reopen and that the quarry operators and licensing authorities are not aware of the possible contamination of the Colorado Springs water supply by intentional or accidental toxic waste spills (example: oil leaking from buried rusting barrels, leaching of undetonated ammonium nitrate, fuel oil, dynamite, or blasting caps, leaking antifreeze, grease, diesel or gasoline from trud<s and/or industrial equipment.) In most locations along the Front Range many of these compounds would be absorbed or degraded in the subsurface before entering any water supplies. Unfortunately, in a karst setting, like the Manitou Embayment, the underground system is much like a storm sewer, where the water entering the system may undergo little or no change before resurging kilometers away in a few months. The purpose of this letter is to inform the licensing authorities that this problem should be addressed when issuing new permits for the Castle Concrete Quarry. My thesis is available on my web site at httnl/spot.Colorado.EDU/ luiszer/ . Reference: