American Fork Canyon cleanup touted

The successful cleanup of mine tailings in American Fork Canyon is being touted as an example of what can happen elsewhere in the West if public/private partnerships can be achieved.

"This is a tribute to the breadth of what we're trying to accomplish," said Chris Wood, vice president for conservation programs for Trout Unlimited during a Wednesday press conference at Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort that included U.S. Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth.

The press conference in Utah — and a simultaneous event in Denver's Confluence Park — were used to announce a formal partnership between the forest service and Trout Unlimited to bring national awareness and support to their joint cleanup work of abandoned mine sites.

Trout Unlimited representatives released the group's "Settled, Mined & Left Behind" report profiling 10 western watersheds whose fisheries and drinking water supplies have been compromised by pollution from abandoned mines, including American Fork Canyon.

"The problem is so thorny and the solutions so difficult to find it's like having a crazy aunt in the attic," Wood said. "It's one of the most significant and least addressed problems we have today."

The job of cleaning up a half million abandoned hardrock mines and the pollution affecting 16,000 miles of streams could cost as much as $100 million and will take years as well as the co-operation of legislators, forest personnel, private landowners and the public.

Wood said the challenge is two sided — a lack of funding dedicated to the cleanup effort and the reluctance of private property owners to be associated with the stigma and liability concerns that accompany pollution rehabilitation projects.

"So we're left with hillsides that bleed zinc, lead and cadmium into the fisheries and rivers," Wood said. "This report is a wake-up call."

Bosworth said there are 38,000 abandoned mines on forest service land alone. Twenty percent have tailings that leach into the streams and rivers.

"The Forest Service wants all of those cleaned up," he said. "It'll take decades to do that. Partnerships are the key."

Mining operations throughout the West spurred local economies in the 1800s and continued to provide raw minerals and products through the 1950s.

But there was little thought given to the environmental impacts or to the waste piles left behind.

Ted Fitzgerald, who spearheaded the cleanup of six significant sites in the American Fork Canyon, said the problem is so large and complex that it seems easier to just ignore it, especially when it isn't readily apparent.