Troubled Waters: The Confluence of Local, State and Federal Environmental Policy at the Headwaters of the , from the Height of the Cold War to 2004

By Rebecca Levy

Major: U.S. History

Fort Lewis College

Mentor: Michael Fry, PhD

ABSTRACT Guaranteeing a sufficient supply of clean water is one of the biggest environmental problems facing the . This problem is dramatically exacerbated in the arid Southwest, where the limited water resources are shrinking, as demand for clean water is increasing. Compounding the problem is the environmental contamination from historic activities. Often located near headwaters, abandoned hard rock mines and mine waste piles deposit heavy metals into the streams and rivers of many of the western watersheds. from historic mining activities further degrades the quality of this limited resource, making the protection of clean water essential to the viability of life in the west.

The town of Rico, is situated at the headwaters of the Dolores River, a tributary to the Colorado, and is surrounded by abandoned silver, lead, zinc, gold and copper mines. Rico‟s mines have been contaminating the Dolores River for over a century. Despite its isolated location, the environmental history of the Rico region illustrates how actions undertaken locally are determined by state and federal policy decisions. These policy decisions are often influenced by national public sentiment and economic trends, rather than empirical science, remedial objectives or local needs.

This study is part of a growing body of environmental history that focuses on the evolution of environmental policy. By incorporating previously unused official accounts from town records, including board minutes and letters, this study contributes to future research on the history of Rico, and on environmental history in general.

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The history of American environmental policy reflects how American society valued the natural environment. During the 1960s and 1970s a significant shift occurred in the American perception of nature and the environment: ecological health became directly linked to human health, and a broad public sentiment arose that government actively enforce environmental protection regulations. In one century, the role of government in relation to natural resources went from one of management of resources for present and future uses, to preservation of resources for the enhancement of American quality of life, to protection of ecological health through punishment of those who undertook activities that threatened ecosystems. One way to explore these trends in environmental values is to examine how human health and environmental protection policies were implemented on the ground during a specific era, at a specific location. Rico, Colorado, an historic former mining town located at the headwaters of the Dolores River in the southwest , provides a laboratory setting for investigating the environmental and human health impacts of hard rock mining, and the ability of federal, state and local policies to deal with these impacts; specifically air, water and soil quality. In Rico, as well as the rest of the country, enforcement of environmental protection regulations was influenced by national political and economic trends. Popular health and environmental causes, federal budget cuts for environmental enforcement, and the will, or lack thereof, by politicians and bureaucrats to deal with the environment, determined how actions were undertaken on the ground. My paper examines how these factors influenced federal, state and local government responses to environmental problems in Rico from the late 1950s through the EPA‟s threat of designating Rico a Superfund site in the early 2000s. Through this research project, local health and environmental issues and policies specific to historic hard rock mining communities are examined and placed within the larger context of the development of American environmental policy. With this analysis, it is evident that American political and economic trends have shaped environmental policies and regulations, such that actual policy implementation and regulatory enforcement is ineffectual in providing adequate, long-term solutions to environmental problems caused by hard rock mining. To develop this argument, I will first look at the historiography of environmental history to place this study in the context of previous academic works. I will then describe the development of federal and state environmental policies, both before and after the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. Next, I will describe the past sixty years of local reaction in the Rico community to negative environmental impacts brought about by hard rock mining activities, and analyze to what extent federal and state environmental policies have addressed or ignored the concerns of the local community. In the conclusion, I will summarize the influence of public opinion on environmental policy, and suggest that, as is evident in Rico, the vacillating nature of politics prevents effective solutions to long-term environmental issues.

HISTORIOGRAPHY The relatively new field of environmental history began as an offshoot of intellectual and political history. The early environmental interpretations of American history often focused on the debate between utilitarian and preservationist values of conservation. These interpretations were founded on Samuel Hays‟s Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency (1959) and Roderick Nash‟s Wilderness and the American Mind (1967). Hays‟s work placed utilitarian conservation in the center of the progressive political movement, while Nash‟s work placed wilderness conservation at the center of understanding American thought (White, 1985). More recently, Donald Worster approached environmental history through studying the intellectual history of science. Rather than focusing on conservation like Hays, Nash and their successors, Worster focused on the science of ecology to illustrate how those studies reflected

Levy 2 specific cultural values. In Nature’s Economy (1977), Worster argued that scientific studies of nature were divided into two conflicting views; one, that humans are in a symbiotic relationship with nature, and two, that humans dominate nature. The increase in environmental regulations and their enforcing agencies has, in recent years, provided a new context for the study of political and economic influences on the environment (Smith, 2000). Rather than taking an abstract intellectual approach to determine popular American thought on the value of nature, my research will include regional and national economic and political trends and how they shaped environmental policies, and the influence of environmental policies on a particular social and natural local ecology. According to historian Richard White, focusing on small, relatively isolated regions can provide laboratory-like settings for understanding social and environmental changes that can contribute to a national understanding of environmental history (1985).

THE DEVELOPMENT OF FEDERAL AND STATE POLICY In the 1960s the federal government began a number of policies to prevent environmental pollution. The Clean Air Act of 1963 attempted to clear the skies of harmful contaminants like acid rain and smog. The Water Quality Control Act of 1966 strengthened earlier legislation by authorizing federal funds for local and state governments to implement water quality controls programs (Smith, 2000). But without regulations establishing national water quality standards, an authority to enforce and hold liable those who violated regulations, and adequate funding to support regulatory enforcement and remediation, these laws had no mechanism to improve the environment. It was not until Congress passed the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 that meaningful enforcement became possible. On January 1, 1970 President Richard Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) into law. NEPA clearly correlated the health of the natural environment to human health and quality of life, and paved the way for the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA was created to enforce all federal environmental regulations. Recognizing the immense human impact upon the natural environment, NEPA authorized the federal government to provide financial and technical assistance to state and local governments, as well as public and private organizations to improve environmental quality “under which man and nature can exist in productive harmony, and fulfill the social, economic, and other requirements of present and future generations of Americans.” NEPA‟s legislative declaration attempted to cover all the ranges of thought about the value of nature, and the government‟s role in protecting and conserving the natural environment. With several high profile water quality stories, namely the Cuyahoga River fire and Santa Barbara oil spill, the federal government passed the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972 (FWPCA). Through this act, and its subsequent amendments (commonly referred to as the Clean Water Act) the federal government authorized states to implement their own water quality standards. States, under the supervision of the EPA, were to require any point source polluters to attain a pollution discharge permit under the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES). Most importantly, the FWPCA gave the EPA the ability to file civil actions and set daily penalties for polluters in violation of the state standards. Acknowledging the enormity of America‟s water pollution problem, the EPA‟s first administrator, , in 1972 addressed an audience of professionals at the Water Pollution Control Federation‟s general session in San Francisco: It used to be that water quality, for example, was of interest only to sportsmen or engineers specializing in waste treatment. But water pollution has evolved in the past two or three years into an urgent problem with broad implications for the

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management of a technological society. It is one of the most serious and pressing environmental disorders we have to wrestle with.

Yet during the mid to late 1970s enforcement of environmental regulations, both locally and nationally, slowed down. The enthusiasm and sense of mission that characterized the early years of the EPA, as well as the environmental movement, faded into complacency. One possible factor was the oil crisis and economic recession that began in 1973 (Marcus, 1991). The economic and energy crisis brought the need for national economic growth to the forefront of political debate, eclipsing environmental protection. Just one month before Ronald Reagan took office and began his administration‟s attempt to castrate the EPA through cronyism, President Jimmy Carter had signed into law one of the most important pieces of environmental legislation, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA). Commonly referred to as Superfund, CERCLA authorized the EPA to act on both discharges, and threats of discharge, of hazardous materials. Through this legislation, the EPA could undertake an environmental cleanup action, and then recoup the costs of environmental cleanup efforts from loosely defined primary responsible parties (PRPs). Under CERCLA, PRPs did not need to be directly responsible for causing environmental impact to become financially liable. An individual or entity needed only to be in the chain of title to the property discharging contaminants in order to incur liability. Not only were PRPs liable for penalty payments for environmental regulation violations, they could now be held financially liable for the extremely costly environmental cleanup, which in addition to initial capital costs, often requires funding for long-term operation and maintenance (Barth & McNichols, 1994). The establishment of CERCLA dramatically increased the EPA‟s ability to undertake environmental enforcement actions. CERCLA became commonly known as Superfund because the act set up a trust fund that was initially funded by a severance tax on petroleum and chemical production. The EPA could use Superfund‟s revenue to investigate liability on contaminated sites, or pay for cleanup on abandoned or orphaned sites where no financially viable PRP existed (Rohrman, 2004). In 1980, prior to CERCLA‟s enactment, the EPA undertook only 1,805 enforcement actions for Clean Water Act violations. By 1987 the number of Clean Water Act violation enforcement actions for that year had risen to 6,400 (Hunter and Waterman, 1992). Despite an attempt to base environmental enforcement actions on science, the creation and implementation of environmental policy was motivated by politics. In a 1991 article assessing the EPA after its first twenty years, policy analyst and professor of strategic management, Alfred Marcus wrote, “[t]he incentive for congress has been to enact more and different legislation in order to please voters in home districts. The incentive has not been to streamline agency operations or to get EPA officials to think broadly and comprehensively about environmental problems.” The creation and implementation of environmental policy was to become further complicated by economic considerations; specifically, the question of who would pay for environmental remediation: government or PRPs? The federal severance tax on polluting industries authorized in 1980 by CERCLA, accounted for approximately 68% of Superfund revenue. It was reauthorized every five years until 1995 when Congress voted not to reauthorize the tax. According to the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), from 1996 through 2007 approximately 59% of Superfund‟s revenues came from the Federal Government‟s general fund (GAO, 2008). As a result, a significant portion of the fund‟s revenues had to be approved through the annual house and senate appropriations process, requiring more cost/benefit analysis and political justification (2008, p. 10). Consequently, Congress‟s dictation of how the EPA spent Superfund revenues became more and more politicized.

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Another consequence of Congress‟s failure to reauthorize the Superfund severance tax was a reduction in the cleanup of abandoned sites. While environmental cleanups funded by the EPA decreased, enforcement actions at sites where financially viable PRPs were found increased. Superfund revenues from fines, penalties and recovered costs from PRPs rose 13% after 1995: from 6% before 1995 to 19% thereafter (GAO, 2008, p. 3). But rather than spend precious hard-fought dollars on legal battles with PRPs, or anger Congress‟s constituents by suing a major employer, the EPA began focusing on encouraging PRPs to voluntarily clean up sites through cooperative settlements (2008, p. 6). As a result, PRPs, through voluntary cleanup programs designed by the PRPs and overseen by the states, were often allowed to remediate contaminated sites to lower standards than those set by the EPA. In the spirit of post-severance tax cooperation, the EPA and the polluting industries began relying heavily on risk assessment analysis to determine the appropriate action level and method of cleanup. Risk assessments were conducted and approved by environmental agencies (usually through independent contractors hired and paid for by the PRP) to determine acceptable levels of risk resulting from cleanup activities (Smith, p. 28-29). Risk assessments usually analyzed human or ecological health risk associated with three levels of cleanup activity: 1) do nothing and leave the source of contamination in place, 2) completely remove the source of contamination, or 3) do something in between. Yet because each site and situation was unique, risk assessments contained an element of uncertainty. Therefore regulatory enforcement agencies tended to err on the side of caution and often prioritized environmental issues based on public opinion and perceived risk, rather than empirical scientific information. Three points are important to remember when examining risk analysis and environmental policy: (1) Analysis is as political as it is scientific; a conflict of values must be considered over and above scientific information; (2) because of a lack of data or the appropriate methodology, science often lacks information to make risk assessments with any degree of certainty; (3) there is often disagreement within the scientific community itself as to the harm or risk involved in a given level of pollution or exposure to a chemical substance (Smith, p. 29).

It is with this understanding of the political and economic nature of federal environmental policy that we now turn to Rico, Colorado to examine how these influences on national policy dictated how a particular local population approached their environmental problems.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS IN RICO, COLORADO Beginning in the Wilderness Area, the Dolores River‟s course meanders 250 miles, from high-alpine blue spruce and aspen forests, down 40 miles south to the piñon/juniper valley where its waters are collected in McPhee Reservoir for municipal and agricultural uses, and back around through the arid canyon country where it joins the Colorado River. Prior to passing through town, the wild and scenic Dolores provides high quality riparian habitat that attracts fly fishermen and campers from around the world to its pristine banks. The town of Rico is situated approximately twelve miles south of the headwaters of the Dolores River, and is the first source of significant human impact to the water quality of the river. Located in the heart of the Pioneer mining district, the Rico region was mined and prospected for over one hundred years. Silver was the first ore to be extracted on a large scale, but by the turn of the twentieth century the resource was exhausted. Small-scale mining continued until World War I, when mining for base metals for the war effort became financially lucrative. Prices for base metals dropped between the wars, and mining in Rico once again came to a halt until prices rose proportionally with World War II demand. The renewed search for lead, copper and zinc prompted

Levy 5 the Rico Argentine Mining Company to consolidate a majority of the mining claims in the Pioneer district. During the height of the Cold War (1953 until 1964), the Rico Argentine Mining Company (RAMCO) mined pyrite and operated a sulfuric acid plant. The sulfuric acid produced in Rico was used to process the uranium mined in Uravan, Colorado near the Utah border. All significant mining operations came to an end in 1974, and the mines were decommissioned and abandoned, but the damage from the mining had been done. Immediately north of the town limits, the river is rerouted from its natural flood plane by the man-made embankments of the Saint Louis Tunnel settling ponds, the primary threat to water quality in the Rico region. The Rico Argentine Mining Company constructed the settling ponds in the 1950s to treat the acid mine drainage coming out of the Saint Louis Tunnel. Prior to building the settling ponds, an average of 1,100 gallons per minute of water from the tunnel carried metals like iron, zinc, lead, cadmium, copper and mercury directly into the Dolores River, posing toxic risk to fish and amphibian habitat (Stilwell, Lee, Kelly & Yadon, 2004). From 1953 to 1965 RAMCO owned and operated a sulfuric acid plant at this same location that killed much of the nearby vegetation. Soil erosion and runoff from the barren hillsides further diminished aquatic habitat and water quality in the Dolores River. As the Dolores flows south through the center of town, it is joined by Silver Creek. Silver Creek‟s watershed stretches five miles east, near the ridgeline bisected by the Colorado Trail. About a mile east of town, an infiltration gallery at the base of an old mine tailings pile diverts a portion of the creek‟s flow to supply the town with municipal drinking water. Just west of the infiltration gallery, Silver Creek passes the abandoned Argentine Mill site and “reclaimed” settling ponds where a seep is loading highly elevated levels of zinc, manganese and cadmium into the creek (Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment Water Quality Control Division [CDPHE], 2008). A little further down, heavily contaminated water from an unnamed adit (an adit is a horizontal mine tunnel) - loads more zinc, manganese and cadmium into Silver Creek, about a mile from where the tributary joins the Dolores in the heart of town (CDPHE, 2008, p. 9). It is this segment of Silver Creek that is listed on the state‟s 303(d) list of impaired stream segments. According to water quality studies by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment‟s Water Quality Control Division, “The high cadmium and zinc concentrations within the 303(d) listed segment of the Silver Creek Basin exceed the standards established to protect aquatic life. Biological studies began in the 1990s by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Colorado Water Quality Control Division concluded that cadmium and zinc threaten trout and macroinvertebrates” (CDPHE, 2008, p. 8). Due to the high concentration of heavy metals, no aquatic life exists in Silver Creek from where it passes the Argentine Mill, and runs down through town. After the confluence with Silver Creek, the Dolores River passes by five additional “reclaimed” waste rock pile seeps that leach metals into the river during heavy run-off periods before it exits the town limits (Stilwell et. al, p. 2). These tailings piles were remediated in the 1990s under a voluntary cleanup conducted by Atlantic Richfield Corporation and overseen by the state, but have not been maintained since they were initially consolidated and capped. Prior to the passage of the Water Pollution Control Act and later, the Clean Water Act, Colorado water regulations dealt primarily with water quantity rather than water quality. Industries such as mining and agriculture demanded large water supplies for their operations, but their political influence kept the state from protecting the quality of the very waters these industries used (Merchant, 2005, p. 488). In the case of hardrock mining, piles of waste rock were often deposited directly in or alongside streambeds, and acid mine drainage flowed willy-nilly, leaching heavy metals right into natural waterways, killing miles of fish and wildlife habitat. The first national and state water quality regulations attempted to address contamination from biological waste of humans and animals, but ignored contamination from toxic chemical and mineral substances. Thus, state and

Levy 6 federal governments lacked the political will to protect human and ecological health from mining pollution prior to the passage of NEPA. During the winter months of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s water shortages in Rico were routine occurrences. Residents, the Rico Argentine Mining Company, and fire insurance companies constantly exerted pressure on the town government to improve the water distribution system. Demand for water at times was so great that many citizens did not seem to care whether their water was polluted. In February of 1957 a citizen‟s petition was circulated and presented to the Rico town board begging the town to solve its drinking water shortage by using the water flowing directly out of the mine workings at the Blaine Tunnel. One Mr. Seerley, signifying the community‟s desperation over the water shortage, demanded that the entire board resign immediately after they voted to test the mine water‟s quality before diverting it into the town‟s water system (Town of Rico, February 7, 1957). Test results from the San Juan Basin Health Unit concluded that the water from Blaine Tunnel was unfit for human consumption. The Unit recommended that the town treat the acid mine drainage with filtration, chlorination and chemical coagulation, but did not state that the town could not use the water without treatment (Town of Rico, February 20, 1957). Thus, while government standards for drinking water existed in 1957, water treatment was just a recommendation, not a requirement. Environmental protection before 1970 favored industry over the citizenry. In 1960 the Rico town attorney mentioned to the board that statutes concerning stream contamination existed, but advised the town that a costly court action was required before the statutes would be enforced, thus placing the burden of proof upon the accuser (Town of Rico, January 9, 1960). Small, busted mining towns like Rico hardly had the financial capacity to improve their own water systems, let alone enter into lengthy and expensive lawsuits with corporations. Therefore, for decades Rico‟s water quantity and quality issues were not addressed. Consequently, throughout the 1960s the town‟s water supply crisis continued to mount. On February 4, 1964 the town board sent a letter urging the Governor to declare Rico a disaster area. Without water since January 10, 1964, the town was concerned about the risk of epidemic outbreaks from contaminated water, as well as the lack of water for fire protection. Apparently, the Governor did not respond, as the town was without water for another three months (Town of Rico, May, 1964). Inaction at the state level determined Rico‟s fate that winter and spring. And although, in 1964, the residents and the town government recognized that human and animal biological waste posed a threat to drinking water quality, there was no discussion at the local level about drinking water contamination from heavy metals due to mine-related activities. The first attempt of the state to enforce drinking water quality regulations in Rico was made on July 6, 1968, a full two years after the passage of the Federal Water Quality Control Act. On that date the San Juan Basin Health Unit told the town board to begin chlorinating its water as soon as possible. Chlorination as a water treatment did reduce bacterial contamination from feces, and prevented infections like giardia, but chlorination treatment by itself did not treat heavy metals in the town‟s drinking water supply. Thus, at that time there was no standard in place regarding heavy metals contamination. Nor were there any monitoring and reporting requirements, and therefore no punitive consequences, if the town did not comply with the state‟s request to chlorinate its drinking water supply (Town of Rico, July 6, 1968). At the same meeting where the state first instructed the town to chlorinate its drinking water, the federal government took its first measure to improve the town‟s drinking water quality. The US Forest Service and the town board entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) regarding the management of public lands within the town‟s watershed (Town of Rico, March 8 and July 9, 1968). By signing the MOU, the town and the Forest Service adopted a watershed management plan that banned livestock grazing within the town‟s watershed to reduce microbial and bacterial

Levy 7 infections from fecal matter. The watershed management plan also acknowledged the existence of patented and unpatented mining claims within the municipal watershed, but stated that the federal government had no authority to ban mining activities within the area, on either private or public lands. The management plan stated that the town should “[e]ncourage the local residents to clean up the old tailings piles, etc. on the private land and private mining claims immediately above the point of [water] intake” (Town of Rico, 1968, p. 3-4). Apparently encouragement was not much of an impetus, for the tailings piles above the town‟s municipal water intake remain in situ today. The watershed management plan signified the mining industry‟s influence over the federal legislature, placing the rights of the mining industry to extract resources and pollute the environment while doing so, above the rights of citizens to consume clean drinking water. The mining industry again won out when it came to the right of citizens to breathe clean air. Up until the closing of the sulfuric acid plant, was a major ecological and human health concern of the Rico citizenry. The Rico Argentine sulfuric acid plant, which operated from 1953 until 1965, produced an average of two hundred tons of pure sulfuric acid per day and generated toxic noxious gas clouds that often hovered over town (Atlantic Richfield Corporation, Rico Development Corporation, Rico Properties L.L.C, Val Truelson and Deanna Truelson, 1996). According to the town board minutes, on April 11, 1958 a letter from a local citizen to the State Health Department was presented to the town regarding air pollution from the acid plant and its detrimental effects to clotheslines, roofs and foliage around town. Again on January 9, 1960, concerns regarding the fog and fumes produced at the acid plant were raised at the town meeting. The town attorney gave his opinion that there was no statute governing the contamination of air, or the control of air contaminants. Sulfuric acid production stopped in 1965, yet it has taken almost half a century for the hillsides above the site to begin re-vegetating. Hillside erosion, due to the lack of vegetation anchoring the soils, increased nonpoint source pollution to the Dolores River, thus illustrating the interrelatedness of air, soil and water quality. It was not until after the passage of NEPA and the establishment of the EPA that the town began regularly chlorinating its drinking water, as evidenced by the board‟s first complaints from town citizens in 1971 that the water tasted too much like chlorine (Town of Rico, December 4, 1971). Prior to the creation of the EPA, federal and state drinking water standards were anything but enforceable. With the creation of an entity with regulatory enforcement authority, the federal government and its citizens finally had a mechanism to begin addressing America‟s environmental problems. It took the threat of punitive action at the federal level to finally motivate organizations, including the town of Rico, to comply with federal and state drinking water quality regulations. The first evidence of actual EPA presence in Rico was in 1972 when photographer Bill Gillette took pictures near the Saint Louis, Blaine and Argentine tunnels as part of the EPA‟s DOCUMERICA program. DOCUMERICA began in 1971 with a mission to photograph the existence of environmental problems in the American landscape that were of concern to the public (Simmons, 2009). Gillette‟s photos showed the deforested hillside caused by air pollution from the sulfuric acid plant and its resulting soil erosion, as well as acid mine drainage that leached heavy metals from mine adits and flowed directly into the Dolores River and Silver Creek (Gillette, 1972). Despite the untreated acid mine drainage being in direct violation of the 1972 federal Water Pollution Control Act and its 1976 Clean Water Act amendments, which required polluters of national waterways to file discharge permits, no one had filed a discharge permit on the Saint Louis Tunnel until 1994, and no one ever filed a discharge permit at the Argentine Mill site on Silver Creek. With the end of the active mining era in Rico, and the beginning of the transition into a post-mining tourism economy, concern finally developed among the local population regarding the ecological condition of the Dolores River. Letters dated August 30 and September 13, 1974 from the

Levy 8 executive vice president of the Environmental Research Institute (FOCERI), Charles Butler, to the General Manager of the Rico Argentine Mining Company (RAMCO), Orville Jahnke, regarding cyanide spills document public and governmental concern. Butler replied to Jahnke‟s request for recommendations to deal with a cyanide spill by saying: I know that some people are saying that the stream has been effectively destroyed for several years because of damage to microscopic organisms and plant life and perhaps this claim could be refuted by proper investigation… I really hope that you can convince the EPA and other concerned groups that you are taking proper measures to control future spills.

Apparently, the EPA, as well as citizen groups, were concerned that RAMCO was responsible for cyanide spills that killed aquatic life in the Dolores River. Judging by RAMCO‟s outreach to FOCERI, the company was also concerned that they could be found financially liable for killing a section of the river. Yet, rather than take any action, the Rico Argentine Mining Company sold its holdings later that year. Because no regulatory mechanism for environmental liability was in effect until the passage of CERCLA in 1980, no enforcement action was ever taken to punish the Rico Argentine Mining Company, despite widespread belief among residents that the cyanide spill killed all of the fish in the Dolores River for a 15-mile stretch. Ownership of the Rico Argentine properties switched hands several times during the decades following Rico‟s active mining period. The Anaconda Copper Company purchased RAMCO‟s holdings in the early 1980s. Soon thereafter, Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) purchased all of Anaconda‟s holdings. ARCO did do some minor exploration in Rico and discovered a substantial molybdenum deposit, but never ran mining operations in Rico, or elsewhere for that matter (Davis, 1994). In 1988, after decommissioning the mines, ARCO sold its Rico holdings to Wayne Webster and Virginia Sell, principles of the Rico Development Corporation (RDC). ARCO‟s brief ownership in the Rico Argentine properties would become a pivotal factor in determining the course of environmental cleanup in the Rico region. Reflecting a regional economic shift from mining to tourism, RDC‟s goals were to sell patented mining claims for real estate development, as rapid growth in the nearby resort community of Telluride began to spill over Lizard Head Pass and into Rico. A new demographic in Rico‟s post- mining economy slowly began moving in. The newcomers were composed mostly of college- educated and/or skilled craftspeople that could not quite afford to live in Telluride, but wanted to be close enough to enjoy the festivals and the outdoor recreational amenities in the area. RDC was the first entity to pull a discharge permit from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment‟s (CDPHE) Water Quality Control Division for the point source pollution from the Saint Louis Tunnel. The discharge permit, issued in 1994, was for the operation of a water treatment plant that chemically treated the acid mine discharge coming out of the Saint Louis Tunnel adit. That same year RDC sold most of its patented mining claims, minus the Argentine Mill site and “reclaimed” Argentine tailings on Silver Creek, to Rico Renaissance, a real estate investment group composed of several Wall Street investors with no experience in real estate. Rico Renaissance had grandiose plans for turning Rico into a medium to high-end second homeowner development. Yet the permit for the water treatment plant was never conveyed by RDC to Rico Renaissance. In order to avoid liability, Rico Renaissance tried to give RDC back the mining claims containing the Saint Louis adit, treatment plant and settling ponds in 1996. But by that time RDC had dissolved and abandoned the operations of the treatment facility (Heil, 2003). Thus, Rico Renaissance was stuck with owning the property where the Saint Louis Tunnel was discharging into the Dolores River, but denied any responsibility for the treatment of the contaminated water.

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Without anyone acknowledging responsibility for the Saint Louis settling ponds or the water treatment facility, and without any enforcement action by the federal or state governments, the town became concerned that the ponds and the treatment plant were falling into disrepair. On April 4, 2000, a series of letters from the town attorney were sent to Governor Bill Owens, the Department of Justice, the EPA Region 8, and the Colorado Department of Health and Environment, pleading for the EPA to take emergency action. Heavy spring runoff was causing acid mine drainage to breach the Saint Louis settling ponds. Also, discharge from the Blaine Tunnel, which was supposed to be rerouted into the Saint Louis Tunnel, was running directly into Silver Creek. The town residents were concerned that the settling ponds would fail from lack of maintenance, causing years of settled contaminants to discharge into the river (Heil, 2000). According to an article sent out on the Associated Press wire on April 22, 2000, the EPA, under the authority of CERLA, initiated an emergency response to repair the settling ponds. In the article, Wayne Webster, a former partner in RDC and holder of the discharge permit, was quoted blaming beavers and environmentalists, rather than his own neglect, for the problem. “Mine owner Wayne Webster of Athens, said the real problem is environmentalists who oppose trapping beavers. „There are so many beavers that they‟re damming everything up there,‟ he said. „We have to get rid of the beavers.‟” Not understanding that the holder of the discharge permit was liable for compliance with the Clean Water Act, Webster also denied any liability for pollution emanating from the settling ponds because he no longer owned them. Because the Rico Development Corporation pulled a discharge permit for the Saint Louis Tunnel treatment plant, it was considered the primary responsible party. In May of 2000, the state and the EPA filed a lawsuit for discharge permit violations for regularly exceeding the Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) under the Clean Water Act, and for recovery of costs for emergency actions undertaken by the EPA under the authority of CERCLA to repair the ponds where they were breached. In the Consent Decree dated June 12, 2003, the estate of Wayne Webster and the estate of Virginia Sell were ruled to owe $290,000 to the EPA‟s Hazardous Substance Superfund (U.S. Department of Justice, 2003). Not satisfied with minor emergency repairs to the settling ponds, on October 17, 2001, the town of Rico passed a resolution supporting a plan by ARCO to put a water treatment plant back on line at the Saint Louis Tunnel, support any enforcement actions by the state or federal government for violations of the Clean Water Act and Colorado Water Quality Control Act, and “support participation by the Town of Rico… to consider, study, analyze and discuss potential opportunities for the Town of Rico, or other community based entities as may be determined appropriate, to facilitate, participate or otherwise assist with efforts to re-institute adequate treatment of the St. Louis Tunnel Adit (Town of Rico, 2001).”

But just over a year later, the Town of Rico grew impatient with ARCO and sent an official letter to the EPA Region 8 director, Sheldon Muller, requesting enforcement action. “The town hereby requests that CERCLA enforcement be formally and officially initiated. Town believes it is important that any potential settlement for the water quality violations comes under the clear authority of federal environmental regulations to minimize the potential for re-occuring [sic] non-compliance or abandonment of the treatment system in the future (Town of Rico, 2002).”

Yet despite the town‟s requests, neither the federal or state governments undertook enforcement action on the Saint Louis Tunnel adit after 2000. Instead, to the chagrin of local residents, in 2003,

Levy 10 the EPA discovered lead soil contamination at numerous sites within the town, and initiated placing the entire town on the National Priorities List, qualifying Rico for Superfund action. Unlike water contamination cleanup, CERCLA enforcement action on lead soil cleanup of residential yards on private property elicited an entirely different reaction among Rico residents and the local government. EPA lead soil remediation actions remove the top twelve inches of soil in residential yards with lead content above 400 ppm and replace the contaminated dirt with clean soil and vegetative caps. Local residents and real estate speculators feared that the EPA‟s low action level of 400 ppm would ruin the alpine landscape and cause a decline in property values. A Health Risk Assessment that measured blood lead levels of each child in Rico, as well as a majority of adult residents, concluded that only one resident had elevated levels of lead in their blood, and that his exposure to lead was occupational (due to his occupation as a metal smith) rather than environmental. Yet while lead did not appear to be bio-available to humans in Rico‟s soils, lead poisoning had been a serious public health issue in other areas, making an environmental cleanup enforcement action politically justifiable, and causing the EPA to err on the side of caution, and ultimately, the side of industry. The EPA identified ARCO as the PRP for the lead soil contamination in Rico. ARCO had a long history of cleanup due to its existence in the chain of title when it purchased Anaconda properties. At the 2008 National Summit of Mining Communities in Butte, MT, the Governor Brian Schweitzer of Montana referred to ARCO‟s parent company, British Petroleum (BP) as “our rich British uncle,” alluding to the enormous amount of money ARCO has spent cleaning up a majority of Montana‟s environmental pollution caused by Anaconda‟s historic hard rock mining activities (witnessed by author). In order to maintain some local control over the conduct of the lead soils cleanup, the town became a co-applicant with ARCO on the Voluntary Clean Up Application (VCUP) with the State of Colorado in 2004. CDPHE accepted an action level which required ARCO to pay for, and conduct, lead soils cleanup by removing, replacing and capping the top four inches of soil on residential yards with 1,100 ppm of lead, or more. A majority of the contaminated residential properties were capped during the summer of 2006 and 2007. The town and ARCO are currently in negotiations about how to complete the cleanup with the unresolved issues regarding how to clean up vacant residential properties, commercial properties, parks and open space, and town streets. ARCO has stated that it will not begin applying for a discharge permit at the Saint Louis Tunnel until the lead soils cleanup is approved and closed by the state.

CONCLUSION This examination of the history of environmental impacts at Rico, Colorado sheds light on the interaction of environmental policy at the local, state and federal levels. Even remote locations, such as the historic hard rock mining town of Rico, Colorado, offer valuable lessons on the broader national political and economic trends that influence federal, state and local policy decisions. As is evident through this analysis of Rico‟s environmental history, national values and public opinion shaped environmental policies, and determined the course of action undertaken on the ground. While the public‟s concern for environmental protection enabled the passage of enforceable environmental legislation in the early 1970s, shifts in public opinion stymied the necessary long-term solutions to environmental problems. Federal and state legislatures have yet to create regulations and funding mechanisms which are immune from the influence of swaying political considerations. Rico‟s environmental history illustrates the critical importance of the roles of federal and state governments in protecting the environment from negative human impacts, and the need for environment policy to address the permanency of environmental degradation.

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