What happens when the money leaves but the mess stays behind
by TUULA REBHAHN
photos by TREVOR ATKINS, CONNER JAY and MATT NICHOLSON
Above: A sign warns against drinking the toxic pool left over from the Formosa mine. This water also runs into the tributaries of the Umpqua River, an internationally known fishery. The site’s clean up is on hold.
Mining has left a distinctive mark on the town of Riddle, Oregon. Just past the storefronts of Main Street, Copper Way branches off through rows of small houses. On the outskirts of town, signs designate Silver Bullet and Nickel Mine roads, which wind into the forested foothills of the Coast Range. The abandoned Formosa mine sits on the barren top of one of those hills seven miles from Riddle. Here, metals are more than just references in the local lexicon: Mining has shaped the landscape. Signs are more difficult to find near the Formosa site. In fact there is only one, and its message is one of caution: “Do not drink this water.”
Riddle, with a population of about 1,000, is the nearest community to Oregon’s most recent proposed Superfund site. Acidic runoff from the mine has devastated local streams and fish populations — a consequence of loopholes in current U.S. mining laws and environmental policies.
Mining began at the Formosa site in 1910 and continued through the next three decades as workers excavated copper and zinc, as well as trace amounts of gold and silver. The hill sat dormant for fifty years before a Vancouver, B.C.–based mine prospector, who created Formosa Excavations Inc., found international investors to back the venture and bought the rights. Formosa Excavations mined the site from 1990 to 1994 and then filed for bankruptcy in 1996. Suddenly left without an owner, the land was placed under the jurisdiction of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.
Top: In a quick effort to mitigate the mess, Formosa Inc. piled its mine tailings on a skinny ridge and encapsulated them with plastic to slow the leaching of harmful minerals into the groundwater.
Left: Farrel Ratliff and his wife Carol stand outside their pottery studio and gallery in Riddle, Oregon. They had seen little in-depth coverage about the abandoned mine, but agreed that taxpayers dollars should be used to clean it up.
Above Right: Glenn Dulany has been to the mine several times on hunting trips. “It is nasty. It is really in bad shape, sitting up there all that time running.” Dulany believes it would be a good use of taxpayers’ dollars to clean it up. “Heck, if you don’t, people are going to eat the fish; people are going to get sick.” Dulany lives along Russell Creek, which is fed by groundwater from below the mine.
The agency soon realized that the site posed an environmental threat, says state project manager Greg Aitkin. Before declaring bankruptcy, Formosa Excavations attempted to contain its waste by dumping it in the more than three miles of mine shafts left behind. Now, the abandoned mine acts as a mixing ground for the acidic waste and rainwater. Heavy metal-laden runoff seeps into the surrounding watershed at a rate of five million gallons per year.
The creeks in the valley below the mine site, Middle Creek and South Fork, bear the pollution’s most visible effects. The agency found large concentrations of heavy metals, such as zinc and copper, in these two tributaries of Cow Creek, a stream that eventually finds its way into the Umpqua River, one of southern Oregon’s primary waterways. In total, eighteen miles of creek, once prime steelhead and coho salmon spawning areas, are now void of aquatic life. Along Cow Creek, agriculture and fish populations are at risk, and the pollution could taint drinking water in nearby Riddle.
The agency estimates that the cost to fix this problem and establish an effective rainwater management system at the site will be more than $15 million, a sum far greater than budgets allow. In the past year, some groups have taken matters into their own hands, pushing for answers and action. Their voices played a part in the agency’s March 2007 proposal to add the site to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund program. The Superfund prioritizes sites across the country that produce toxins considered hazardous to the health of people and the environment and puts into action federal money set aside for large-scale clean-up projects.
Francis Eatherington, conservation manager for Umpqua Watersheds, feels that outdated mining and bankruptcy legislation needs to be changed if Oregon is to avoid similar environmental catastrophes in the future. She and other activists have long criticized the 1872 Mining Act, which makes public lands available to private mining for a nominal fee. “This was just one of many laws intended to promote settlement of the West,” she says. This act allows any mineral-bearing land to be purchased no matter its protection status. Furthermore, bankruptcy often enables companies to forgo their responsibility for cleanup of abandoned sites. This sequence of events can be witnessed across the western United States. “We’re not a mining state, so I think people are surprised that we have our very own abandoned mine site,” says Aitkin.
The DEQ expects the Superfund listing to go through, but the program’s funds are scarce. Of 1,243 total sites on its National Priorities List, eleven are in Oregon. According to Aitkin, this makes the prospect of timely action on Formosa unlikely, although the EPA will begin emergency mitigation on the site this summer. In the meantime, acidic water continues to percolate into Riddle’s surrounding watershed.
Below: The tailings below the road to the mine make it easy to route the mine water into Middle Creek.
