Trust fund created to clean up mining sites

Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2000 | 10:20 a.m.

The fund is a response to the drop in gold prices and recent surge in bankruptcy filings by mining companies that do business in Nevada. Thirty-five of the state's mining operations are in various stages of bankruptcy proceedings.

Mining companies are putting up the $1 million in the fund, which will be used to hire personnel and pay other expenses to keep leach ponds from overflowing.

The fund is meant to bridge the gap between the time when mine operators abandon their projects and bonding companies release reclamation money - about six months. The bonding companies will reimburse the fund for any money spent.

"Without active fluid management, these ponds will overflow in days or hours," Dave Gaskin, mining chief for the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection, told commissioners Tuesday.

Active fluid management means periodically turning on pumps and allowing fluids that accumulate at the bottom of mining heaps to recirculate. These fluids typically contain rain water, cyanide, acids and a variety of heavy metals.

A heap is a small mountain of crushed, ore-bearing rock over which mining companies spray a diluted solution of cyanide or acids which dissolve the precious metals. The solution is collected at the bottom in ponds, the gold, silver, copper and other metals are removed and the solution is then recirculated.

After a mine closes, the solution is continuously circulated in the hopes that much of it will evaporate and the flow slows to a trickle.

Mining watchdog Glenn Miller said the fund is a good idea but $1 million is not enough money.

"It's probably enough to help out if some moderate-sized mines have fluid management problems," said Miller, chairman of Great Basin Mine Watch's board of directors.

"It's insufficient to handle a large spill. It's some money that will allow at least the appearance of being able to manage fluids."

Russ Fields, president of the Nevada Mining Association, said his group supports the fund because its members want to avoid the negative publicity and backlash that would certainly follow a major mine abandonment and environmental spill.

Fields said his members also debated whether the $1 million is enough.

"If it proves not to be sufficient, we'll be the first ones back saying we need (to put in) more," Fields said.

State environmental officials are currently managing fluids at three mines - the Paradise Peak Complex of gold mines near Gabbs, the Copper Tek copper mine near Yerington and the Aurora Mine in Mineral County.