Summitville and Berkeley Mine

Summitville Mine

The Summitville Mine is an open pit site is found 25 miles south of Del Norte, Colorado with an elevation of 11,500 feet above sea level in southwestern Colorado. The mine site is located south of Wightman Fork, about two miles east of the Continental Divide. The town of Summitville is just to the north of the mine site on the other side of Wightman Fork (EPA) . 

The region is usually subject to severe winters with substantial snowfall that gather on steep slopes. Snow may usually remain on the ground until late spring or early summer. It provides water in sizes sufficient to keep streams flowing year-round, and the snow acts as a continual source of water entering the soil.

Gold and silver mining started at Summitville around 1870. Large scale, open-pit mining started at the site in 1984. The mine operator was Summitville Consolidated Mining Corp., Inc. They used cyanide heap leaching to extract metals from the ore. In this process, the ore mined from the mountain was crushed and placed onto the clay and synthetic-lined heap leach pad. Sodium cyanide solutions were then applied to leach out gold and silver.

Almost immediately after its construction in 1986, there was a leak detected in the heap leach pad. Summitville Consolidated Mining Corp abandoned the site and announced that they were filing for bankruptcy in December 1992 (SUMMITVILLE MINE DISASTER). The EPA immediately presumed responsibility of the site as an act of emergency response. On May 31, 1994 Summitville was put on the National Priorities List of Superfund sites (EPA).

Copper, cadmium, manganese, zinc, lead, nickel, aluminum, and iron have contaminated the surface water, groundwater and the soil.Mining operations deforested and greatly disturbed most of the land area at the site. Because of the site has so many minerals, almost all exposed natural materials are capable of generating acid. The acid moves the variety of metals that are then discharged and as a result contaminate the Alamosa River system which is right below the site.  Because of this, surface water quality downstream of the mine has been degraded by low pH water and also by raised levels of dissolved solids and heavy metals, mainly copper (SUMMITVILLE MINE DISASTER)

In 1997, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry a public health assessment led to the classification of the Summitville site as having no apparent public health hazard. However, ecological impacts from site contaminants have been significant (THE SUMMITVILLE MINE AND ITS DOWNSTREAM EFFECTS). The Alamosa River system below the site cannot currently support aquatic life. Studies show that that there are negative effects to agriculture and livestock from regular use of Alamosa River water.

Berkeley Pit Mine

The Berkeley Pit was a former open pit copper mine located in Butte, Montana, United States. It is a mile long by half a mile wide with a depth of about 1,780 feet. It is filled to about 900 feet with water that is heavily acidic. It has  a 2.5 pH level and as a result, the pit is overloaded with heavy metals and dangerous chemicals that leach from the rock, including copper, arsenic, cadmium, zinc, and sulfuric acid.

Approximately 320 million tons of ore and over 700 million tons of waste rock were mined from the Butte Hill (Pitwatch). The Berkeley Mine, located in Butte, Montana is an open pit copper mine. This means that it has the same basic shape as the Summitville mine, an inverted mountain, but instead of mining for gold, this mine is meant for copper. Copper is an extremely important metal in modern society because it is the means for all the modern technology. This is because all wires that are used for electronics use copper to conduct electricity. More important than this use is copper in generators. The generators that spin because of some kinetic force are able to convert the energy to electricity using copper wire spinning around magnetic force, allowing electrons to flow.  The pit is one mile long by half a mile wide with an approximate depth of 1,780 feet (540 m). It is filled to a depth of about 900 feet (270 m) with water that is heavily acidic (2.5 pH level), about the acidity of cola or lemon juice. This acidity is obviously extremely dangerous to life around the mine. Copper sulfate was extracted from the mines in order to make copper. 

As NASA states, "The mine took advantage of the existing subterranean drainage and pump network to lower groundwater until 1982, when a new owner suspended operations. After the pumps were turned off, water from the surrounding rock basin began seeping into the pit. By the time an astronaut on the International Space Station took this picture on August 2, 2006, water in the pit was more than 275 meters (900 feet) deep." The acidity of the liquid in the pit is so great that it is eating away at the rock and spreading the acidic water around to surrounding surface water, groundwater, and soil. Ultimately, about 1,000,000,000 tons of material was mined from the Berkeley Pit. The acidity is so great, that in 1995, a flock of geese landed in the Berkeley pit water, and all 342 geese died. After closer inspection by scientists, it was revealed that the insides of the geese were lined with burns and festering sores from exposure to high concentrations of copper, cadmium, and arsenic, obviously linking the pit to the death of the geese. 

To clean up the pit, a treatment plant has started construction to treat the water in the pit and the tailings pond. The treatment plant should be done and will be ready to treat the water and remove the toxins and acidity of the water in 2018.

Both of these mines are on the federal EPA Superfund site list. According to the EPA, "A Superfund site is an uncontrolled or abandoned place where hazardous waste is located, possibly affecting local ecosystems or people." The EPA helps analyze and protect the areas that have been identified as Superfund sites and help to resolve the issues that the problem presents to the environment. The Summitville mine is on the National Priorities List, and as of now, the EPA has listed their work as a success, with current human exposures at the site under control and contaminated ground water migration is under control.

Work Cited

 Costanzi, Fran. "EPA." Summitville Mine. EPA, 8 Jan. 2015. Web. 12 Mar. 2015.

EPA. Superfund Process. Digital image. San Jacinto River Waste Community Involvement. EPA, 31 July 2014. Web. 12 Mar. 2015.

EPA. "Superfund Sites Where You Live." EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, 19 Feb. 2014. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.

Mining-technology.com. Open Pit Mine Planning. Digital image. Marston - Mining Engineers and Consultants. Mining-technology.com, 2015. Web. 12 Mar. 2015.

NASA. Berkeley Pit Mine. Digital image. Image of the Day Gallery. NASA, 23 Mar. 2008. Web. 12 Mar. 2015.

Plumlee, Geoffrey S. "THE SUMMITVILLE MINE AND ITS DOWNSTREAM EFFECTS." Ate THE SUMMITVILLE MINE AND ITS DOWNSTREAM EFFECTS. Usgs, 01 Jan. 1995. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.

Williams, Mark. Aerial View of Summitville Mine. Digital image. Landscapes and Water. University of Colorado Boulder, 1995. Web. 12 Mar. 2015.

William, Mar. "Toxic Waste Cleanup." Landscapes and Water (GEOG 1011): Summitville Mine Disaster. Mark Williams, 1 Jan. 1995. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.