Coating may ease potentially toxic dust from mine

Jeffrey Libby

Thursday, Sept. 12, 2002 | 9:48 a.m.

Cleanup began this morning at an abandoned manganese mine south of Sunrise Mountain, a World War I-era relic in a valley now teeming with smaller, thriving sand and gravel pits mined for home building.

A sprayed-on polymer coating, planned as a short-term fix, should snuff out black veils of potentially toxic dust that have blown from the 150-acre Three Kids Mine for more than 40 years, said Bob Folle, compliance manager for the Clark County Air Pollution Control Division.

As far back as 1917, a fine, black dust blew unchecked during mining and milling of the manganese ore, a steel-hardening agent used in military weaponry. But until sand and gravel pits helped build homes into the southeastern foothills of the Las Vegas Valley, the county never heard any complaints.

"Up until Lake Las Vegas went in, no one really went up there, unless they were driving by on their way to the lake," Folle said. "But this will stabilize the soil, so that every time the wind blows dust and manganese isn't blowing all over."

The dust contains high levels of manganese, arsenic and lead, three heavy metals that pose a threat to human health, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Private landowner Three Kids Enterprises and the Bureau of Reclamation, each of which owns close to 75 acres of the open-pit mine, contracted to share estimated expenses of $80,000 to seal it.

The county cited the landowners in June 2001 under a clean air law that did not exist in 1989 when Three Kids Enterprises bought several hundred acres at auction with plans to develop a residential community.

The Bureau of Reclamation has owned its share of the mine going back to the 1920s, said Jeffery Smith, the bureau's hazardous materials coordinator for the lower Colorado River region.

In most environmental cleanups on its land, the bureau passes costs onto private companies who have used the land or water resource, such as in Topock, Calif., where Smith is overseeing a multimillion-dollar cleanup of groundwater contaminated by electric company Pacific Gas & Electric.

But there is no one to call for this expense, Smith said. After thriving through World War I, World War II and the Korean War, the Three Kids Mine went dormant for the last time in the early 1960s, when Manganese, Inc. closed operations.

"We've owned the property a long time and we've talked with our attorneys. They said let's get into compliance and then talk about selling the land," Smith said.

Paul Bertuccini, manager of Three Kids Enterprises, did not return calls for comment, but previously said his company will pay for cleanup "to do the right thing."

Laird Sanders, who has run a Lake Mead Drive boat storage service near the mine for six years, said he is looking forward to completion of dust-control measures in about two weeks.

"I may become a little healthier. I may not cough as much," he said.

As for Folle, he said his 20-person staff will refocus dust monitoring efforts on the hundreds of sand and gravel pits and concrete batch plants around the valley that provide essential material for the home-building industry.