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Iron Mountain Mine cleanup: Polluted area near mine a notorious ‘beast’

Posted by: Maven on June 12, 2009 at 8:04 am

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Rick Sugarek knows not to splash through the puddles inside “the mouth of the beast.” That is what he calls the gaping wound near Redding known to everybody else as the Iron Mountain Mine, which is widely regarded by scientists as one of the most polluted places in the world.

The project manager for the Environmental Protection Agency said he once dropped a pen in some running water inside the mine and when he recovered it, it was coated in copper. The water is so acidic that droplets eat holes in blue jeans and dissolve the stitching on boots, much like battery acid.

Sugarek stood today in a shaft once known as the Richmond Mine. It is the source of the toxic stew that has polluted the Sacramento River and its tributaries for more than a century, killed thousands of fish and turned a once majestic mountain into a hellish breeding ground for nasty bacterial slime that helps create what geologists say is the “world’s worst water.”

But on this day Sugarek was full of hope, despite the dismal surroundings. The EPA was recently awarded $20.7 million in federal stimulus funds to clean up the heavy metals that have flowed into and accumulated at the bottom of the Keswick Reservoir for decades, threatening fish if not people. Sugarek said the metals have settled to the bottom and do not affect the quality of the drinking water.

Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle by clicking here.

June 12, 2009 · Filed Under Water Quality

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