Good Samaritan Legislation for Abandoned Mine Cleanup Enacted

A new law decades in the making could finally lead to cleaning up some of the thousands of abandoned mines in Colorado that dump toxic metals and acid into the headwaters of life-sustaining rivers across the West.

The Good Samaritans for Abandoned Hard Rock Mine Remediation Act, signed into law by President Joe Biden on December 19, is the first step toward removing the burdensome legal responsibilities of groups and state governments that volunteer to clean up abandoned mines and improve water quality.

“This is an important milestone and arguably one of the most important environmental laws passed in decades,” said Ty Churchwell, mining coordinator at Trout Unlimited, who has worked for more than two decades to create better environmental protection policy. cleaning abandoned mines.

Hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines across the West dump acidic drainage water and dissolved toxic metals into waterways that provide drinking water, recreation and critical habitat for wildlife. But groups wanting to clean up the sites were blocked by environmental protection laws that required them to take on so much legal liability that the risk outweighed the benefits.

A site can only be eligible for the new pilot program created by the law if no one is available to be held responsible for the mining and the original pollution. Many sites in Colorado’s mining belt shut down production before regulations were created to hold miners accountable for environmental degradation, leaving abandoned sites across the state.

The pilot program allows nonprofit organizations, state agencies and others to clean up abandoned mine sites without taking on heavy responsibility. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has 180 days to launch the program, which will then evaluate proposed sites for cleanup and choose 15.

Before the law was passed, groups that wanted to clean up former mining sites – called “good Samaritans” – could find themselves with ongoing liability for pre-existing pollution at a site under two of the landmark conservation laws. the country’s environment: Superfund and Clean Water Act.

Several Colorado sites would fit well with the pilot program, said Jason Willis, director of Trout Unlimited’s Western Abandoned Mine Lands program.

More than 23,000 abandoned mines dot Colorado’s public and private lands and at least 500 of them measurably harm water quality, according to the Division of Reclamation, Mining and Conservation. Colorado security.

Although the bill passed with bipartisan support from lawmakers across the country, it took 25 years to reach consensus on what the program should look like. Colorado’s two senators and five representatives from the state’s House of Representatives supported the bill. The law is common sense, said Sen. Michael Bennet, who has introduced several versions of the bill over the past 12 years.

“Thousands of abandoned mines pollute our ecosystems and threaten our watersheds in Colorado and across the West,” Bennet said in a statement after the bill passed. “This bill will make it easier for our state, local governments and nonprofits to clean up these mines, reduce pollution and improve water quality.

The pilot program will last seven years, after which Congress should consider creating a permanent program, Churchwell said. If all goes well with the pilot, we will have data showing the value of creating a permanent program, he said.

“The idea of ​​this bill is to prove the program,” he said.

As cleanup of abandoned mines progresses, policymakers, nonprofit leaders and communities will need to find the money to complete the projects, Willis said. Cleaning up all the leaking mines in the United States could cost more than $50 billion, according to an estimate from Trout Unlimited.

Future versions of the law could include an element allowing companies to recover and sell critical minerals from acid mine drainage, said Molly Morgan, a doctoral student at the Colorado School of Mines who studies the recovery of critical minerals from mine drainage. . The money could then be used to offset rehabilitation costs and create a financial incentive to clean up more abandoned mines.

“I really think we’re being shortsighted as a country if we don’t see this as an opportunity,” she said.

The pilot program is a phenomenal first step toward solving a pervasive problem in the West, she said.

“I think it took a long time,” Morgan said. “This bill is the product of massive compromise.”

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