Environmental commission allows mine drainage plan

Wednesday, May 3, 2000 | 12:07 p.m.

The commission, meeting Tuesday in Carson City, said there are enough safeguards to keep drainage from the former Wind Mountain Mine north of Reno from posing a health or environmental threat.

Critics, including Great Basin Mine Watch and the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, argued contamination would degrade groundwater near the old cyanide leach heap.

But commissioners said even if contaminants reached groundwater supplies, monitoring wells in the area would alert regulators, who could then order the mining company to clean it up before real damage is done.

"The damage would be minimal if something happened at this particular location," said Environmental Commissioner Bob Jones.

The Wind Mountain Mine, now owned by Kinross Gold USA with regional headquarters in Salt Lake City, has been closed for eight years.

From 1989-92, the mine located in the San Emidio Desert south of Empire extracted gold and silver by sprinkling cyanide over the heaps of low-grade ore in a mining and milling area of about 820 acres, a little more than a square mile.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management concluded, and the state agreed, that the groundwater is so deep beneath the ground - at least 600 feet - that there's little risk of the toxic materials reaching it.

"Based upon the technical modeling, it was the best scientific evaluation that it was never going to reach the groundwater," said Dave Murphy, BLM geologist in Winnemucca.

"It's not a matter of just saying, 'We're finished, we're going to dump it out there,"' he said. "We have gone through a long process of trying to improve the water quality in the amount of pollution that was left there."

The Nevada Division of Environmental Protection issued the mine a water pollution control permit in March, allowing the draining to begin.

The division agreed that though "unregulated long-term heap draindown discharges to the environment may have the potential to degrade waters of the state," it concluded that the project is safe.

"Division's review of the Wind Mountain closure proposal indicates that there will be no degradation of waters of the state, including wet years that may occur over the next 100 years," the state division said.

But critics charge the state is setting a bad precedent by allowing the mine to drain its heap below ground.

"This is clearly a decision that dumping large amounts of contaminants in the desert is OK," said Glenn Miller, Great Basin Mine Watch board chairman. "I'm saddened by that.

"Nevadans should ask if this is what we want."