EPA to proceed with Superfund listing of Leviathan Mine

Friday, May 21, 1999 | 5:03 a.m.

The EPA said it is still waiting for a response from California Gov. Gray Davis to a February letter asking for the state's position on the listing of Leviathan Mine in remote Alpine County.

The EPA has proposed the mine be designated as a Superfund site, which would make it available for federal cleanup money.

In a Feb. 4 letter, EPA Regional Administrator Felicia Marcus said Leviathan Mine poses "an immediate threat to public health, welfare or the environment" and appears deserving of Superfund status.

In a follow-up letter sent this week to Winston Hickox, California's environmental protection secretary, EPA Deputy Administrator Laura Yoshii noted the agency has not received a response from California.

"Although EPA is interested in receiving the state of California's views on our proposal to list the Leviathan Mine, we will proceed with listing if we haven't heard from you by mid-June," Yoshii wrote.

Located near the Nevada-California line, the remote mine in the eastern Sierra is about 25 miles southwest of Gardnerville and an equal distance southeast of Lake Tahoe.

Each spring, holding ponds designed to contain toxic materials routinely overflow with the snowmelt. The poisonous mixture drains into Leviathan Creek, which flows into Bryant Creek before emptying into the east fork of the Carson River.

The bed and banks of Leviathan Creek are stained yellowish-brown from decades of pollutants. Both creeks are devoid of fish.

The mine opened in 1863 to provide copper sulfate used in processing silver ore in Virginia City during the Comstock era. It closed in 1872 and remained dormant until 1935, when it reopened as a sulfur mine for six years.

It operated again briefly in the 1950s before being shut down in 1962.

California took over the site in 1983. It now is managed by the Lahontan region of the California Regional Water Quality Control Board, which already has spent more than $4 million trying - with mixed success - to control the damage.