Posted on 06/12/2009 8:32:42 PM PDT by thecodont
06-12) 04:00 PDT Redding - --
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 Thursday 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
On the other hand, I find it a bit puzzling. The toxic elements became a hazard only when exposed to air by man (mining). Consider a situation where an area such as this, full of toxic minerals and heavy metals, was exposed to air through an earthquake. Not the same thing, eh? So it would be classified as a volcanic caldera, or some such. Subtract the agency of man, and where is the story here?
The mine owner has the best solution ,, resume mining ... when the minerals are gone the problem is gone... when the mine was in operation they handled the sulfuric acid problem by bottling and selling it... seems like resuming production is the best solution.
‘unique strains of bacteria that live in a bed of pink slime that is part of a little-understood biochemical cycle that devours iron, produces sulfuric acid, and creates a nightmarish broth of copper, zinc and arsenic’
I saw that movie, Andromeda Strain.
Copper is over $4 a pound. If you could recover it just by dipping some iron into the water, wouldn’t people be doing that? Either the guy is lying or something else is going on.
I thought they were referring to my dog’s breath...
As another poster said, the mine owner has the right idea: resume mining and get the offending materials out where they can be put to good use.
The environment wins, the mine wins, and the fishies get to swim another day.
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