The Yellow RiverOne of the legacies of 200 years of mining in North America before the establishment

The Yellow RiverOne of the legacies of 200 years of mining in North America before the establishment of environmental regulations is a lot of old, unstable mines. On Wednesday, one of them changed the color of this river in southern Colorado.The Gold King Mine began its development in the late 1800s and produced gold ore until the latter half of the 20th century. Mines in this area already have a checkered history despite their long production – in 1908 about 6 miners were killed and several others injured when a fire in the Gold King Mine fouled the air they were breathing.The last mine in this area closed in the 1980s and as of now what remains is the environmental legacy. Tailings, the debris from the mines, are commonly exposed at the surface where they react with rainwater to produce acid mine drainage. Those tailings are often piled up as unstable dams that hold water in place. A lake held in place by a tailings pond in 1978 broke through into one of the mines and completely drained away in a day – had the mine been in operation there likely would have been many casualties.In 1974, while the mines were still operating, a tailings pond ruptured and allowed water to flow into the nearby Animas River. At the time the mining company paid for the spill, but since the companies doing the mining have shut down, it is left to the government to manage the waste.On Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was monitoring a tailings pond at the site and using heavy equipment to adjust the dam when it collapsed. The pond held almost 4 million liters of acidic, iron-containing water that had reacted with the mine tailings – the goal of the EPA monitoring was to keep this pond stable. Instead, a massive water release took place, fouling the river and sending a pulse of orange, iron-bearing, acidic water downstream.This river is already heavily damaged from previous spills so there may not be much loss of aquatic life from it, but it will likely set back ongoing recovery efforts. The community nearby has switched its water source away from the river, but the water pulse is still going to move downstream. Like most mine drainages, it will carry a large load of various heavy metals that aren’t good for humans, so cities will likely have to switch water supplies until the pulse moves downstream through the Colorado River system and sediments out in Lake Powell.Remarkable photographs, a legacy of mining operations, and a real mess.-JBBImage credit: Jerry McBride/APhttp://bit.ly/1DuQ1d3References:http://bit.ly/1Md229Qhttp://on9news.tv/1OTFgBChttp://bit.ly/1SVScNNhttp://bit.ly/1IrQgofhttp://www.narrowgauge.org/ncmap/excur2_gladstone.htmlhttp://bit.ly/1Dw8yWHhttp://www.coloradoscenicrails.com/trains/durango/history.aspxhttp://bit.ly/1MSSukm -- source link

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