by John Orr
Summitville Clean Up
It’s been nearly 20 years since the Environmental Protection Agency started cleanup efforts at the Summitville Mine. Runoff from the former open pit gold mine and its cyanide leach field was blamed for killing all aquatic life in the Alamosa River.
In early September the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment held a dedication ceremony for a new water treatment plant at the site. CPDHE executive director Chris Urbina told those assembled, “This project provided more than a 100 construction jobs in this area, and significantly improved water quality, restoring fish and aquatic life to the Alamosa River and Terrace Reservoir,” according to The Pueblo Chieftain.
The new water treatment plant has a capacity of 1,600 gallons per minute and replaces a 1,000 gallon per minute plant that could not handle the volume of water leaving the mine. It is designed for the removal of contaminants from acidic metals-contaminated mine drainage before it the enters the Wrightman Fork at the headwaters of the Alamosa River.
According to The South Fork Times, “Large-scale, open-pit mining began at the site in 1984,” and, “Almost immediately after the heap leach pad was constructed in 1986, a leak was detected.” The Summitville Consolidated Mining Company abandoned the site in 1992, declared bankruptcy and flew the coop, leaving the problem behind for state and federal agencies.
In addition to treating the water, remediation has included detoxifying, capping and revegetating the heap leach pad, plugging the adits, and filling in the mine pits.
Power for the water treatment plant and the site in general comes from a 56 kilowatt micro-hydroelectric plant installed in 2009 and 2010. The plant uses about 10 cubic feet per second of the mine discharge to generate power.
Watering the dry side of Colorado
When talking about future water needs for Colorado you often hear that 80% of Colorado’s precipitation falls west of the Great Divide while 80% of the population lives on the eastern slope. Also, agricultural use accounts for 85% of the water put to beneficial use each year. So that’s the starting point when water wonks get together to try to find a solution to the projected gap in state supplies pegged at 500,000 acre-feet or so by the year 2050.
One project, the proposed Flaming Gorge Pipeline, is seen as part of the solution to meet the gap. Two pump stations are envisioned – one at Flaming Gorge Reservoir and one just downstream from Green River, Wyoming – to move water 500 miles to the Front Range and points as far south as Pueblo County. The water would be used to slake the thirst of municipalities that are dependent on the non-renewable deep aquifers of the Denver Basin and to replace agricultural supplies as that water is moved off the land to water the unbridled growth along the Front Range.
The project is of interest to water officials in the Gunnison River, Arkansas River and Rio Grande River basins. San Luis Valley water expert Steve Vandiver told the Valley Courier, “It is important for the Valley water users to have ‘a place at the table’ in discussions about future water sources such as the Flaming Gorge proposal to prevent ag land here from becoming a target for water acquisitions, as it has on the Front Range.” Ag water is “easy pickings,” he said.
Various estimates for the cost of the project have been made with the state of Colorado citing $7 to $9 billion. If the project is built by Aaron Million (the originator of the idea), it will be built with private dough. Another group led by Frank Jaeger (Parker Water and Sanitation) hijacked Million’s idea a couple of years ago and hopes to build it with public money.
Western Resource Advocates recently released a report about the project where they named it, “A water pipeline no one can afford.”
The Colorado Water Conservation Board met in Grand Junction on September 13 and 14 in part to take up the question of committing $150,000 to a study of the proposed pipeline. At the CWCB meeting the decision was made to pare down the request for the feasibility study to $72,000 with more dough available if things look promising.
Careers in the Water Business
If you’re looking for a career that can’t be outsourced to other countries for their cheap labor, it might be a good time to consider entering the water business. Water treatment plant operators, wastewater plant operators, water quality technicians and others are in big demand and the future is bright. A recent report from the Boulder Daily Camera says that nearly 3,000 new water treatment plant operator jobs will open up in the Denver Metropolitan area over the next five years due to Baby Boomer retirements and growth. The demand is increasing statewide as well.
Two new education programs have surfaced recently.
Otero Junior College in La Junta kicked off their Water Quality Management Technology program on August 22. Their press release states, “Upon completion of the certificates, students will be prepared to sit for the Colorado Water and Wastewater Facility Operators certification board operator’s certification test at the C and D levels.”
If living in the big city for your education needs is appealing, Metropolitan State College of Denver is in the process of establishing the “One World, One Water Center for Urban Water Education and Stewardship” at the school.
In addition, Red Rocks Community College in Lakewood has an established and well-respected program. Another source for information is the Colorado Operator Certification Program Office (www.ocpoweb.com).
Short Takes
• Parts of the San Luis Valley have really struggled to stay watered this year. Alamosa County experienced their driest August on record, according to The Pueblo Chieftain.
• Lynn McCullough, president of the Subdistrict 1 Board of Managers, Rio Grande Water Conservation District, wrote recently in The Pueblo Chieftain that, “It now appears that the unconfined aquifer in the Closed Basin may fall to levels below those experienced following the 2002 drought, eliminating all of the gains made in restoring the aquifer through the voluntary efforts of the past eight years.”
• Drought is well-entrenched in Central Colorado this year. In addition to Alamosa County the U.S. Drought Monitor website shows drought conditions covering most of the Arkansas and Rio Grande basins.
• The western U.S. relies heavily on water storage to smooth out the ups and downs of runoff. The Mountain Mail reported in August that the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District and other entities, including Salida and Buena Vista, have formed committees to look at storage in the upper basin nearer the point of use.
• The first geothermal potential test hole at Poncha Hot Springs demonstrated a thermal gradient of 178 degrees Celsius per kilometer at a relatively shallow depth of 255 feet, according to The Mountain Mail.
• NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center announced on September 8 that La Niña is back. The event last winter was credited with the monster snowpack across northern Colorado and the mega-drought across the U.S. southern tier.
John Orr follows Colorado Water issues at Coyote Gulch (http://coyotegulch.net/). You can follow along on Twitter as well, @CoyoteGulch.