Breadcrumbs
Home / CO: Mining Companies Agree to Pay $20.5 MillionCO: Mining Companies Agree to Pay $20.5 Million
Last Updated on Wednesday, 2 July 2008 09:56 Written by rslcpol Wednesday, 2 July 2008 09:56
From Rocky Mountain News:
Two mining giants have agreed to pay Colorado $20.5 million to compensate for a legacy of polluted streams, fish kills and contaminated groundwater from decades of hard rock mining around Leadville.
Under terms of a consent decree to be filed in U.S. District Court, ASARCO will pay $10 million and Resurrection/Newmont USA Ltd. will pay $10.5 million in “natural resource damages” to make up for the environmental harm in the mining district.
The damages are associated with the California Gulch Superfund site, an 18-square mile region that includes Leadville and headwaters of the Arkansas River. The region has been mined for gold, silver, lead, zinc and copper since 1859.
The legal settlement for environmental damages is Colorado’s second largest ever, trailing only the $35 millon the Army and Shell Oil Co. agreed to pay Colorado for environmental damages at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Adams County, northeast of Denver.
The California Gulch agreement is distinct from a long-running Superfund cleanup of the site, dating to 1983, that has seen the federal government and private companies spend tens of millions of dollars to divert pollutants from the Arkansas River, among other projects.