Plan to clean up water draws fire

SOUTH SALT LAKE — Salt Lake County Mayor Nancy Workman fears a cleanup plan for contaminated groundwater could significantly hamper efforts to clean up the Jordan River.

Braving freezing temperatures, Workman stood on the river's bank Monday afternoon and urged Kennecott Utah Copper to look for a way to clean up a plume of contaminated groundwater that does not involve dumping the by-products of the treated water into the river.

Among the by-products would be selenium, a mineral which can pose significant dangers, especially to the birds which use the Great Salt Lake wetlands where the Jordan River empties.

"It's not much of a cleanup plan when you reduce the water quality of the largest river in the Salt Lake Valley," Workman said.

She also criticized both Kennecott and Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District, which will partner with the mining company on the water treatment, for not looking at other options for disposal of the waste. In many ways, they are reinforcing the belief that it is not necessary to protect the Jordan River, an attitude which Workman said has led to the current challenges to improving the river for both recreation and wildlife.

"I fear that the Jordan is being considered as the first option for waste disposal," she said. "It should be the last option."

Kennecott spokesman Louie Cononelos said the plan was created after almost a decade of work, which included consulting with local governments, state regulators and environmentalists, he said. The discharge of selenium and sulfate into the Jordan River will be done by the water district under a permit currently used at its treatment plants.

"There's been a lot of input and a lot of regulatory input," Cononelos said. "Any discharge is done within their (Jordan Valley) permit and meets the standards for discharge into the river."

The water will come from part of a larger, 72-square-mile contaminated plume of groundwater in southwest Salt Lake County. The underground water flowing from the Oquirrh Mountains is polluted with sulfates, acids and metals.

As part of the cleanup, contaminated groundwater would be drawn from wells and pumped to a Jordan Valley treatment plant where the water would undergo a process called "reverse osmosis" to remove the pollutants and net an additional 8,200 square feet of drinking water. It also will create the by-products which critics fear will harm the wetlands.

The project is part of a legal settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency. Cononelos said it will cost Kennecott and Jordan Valley upwards of $100 million to complete all aspects of the cleanup.

Of greatest concern to local wildlife advocates is the impact of selenium on the "internationally significant" Great Salt Lake wetlands and waterfowl habitats.

"We would want to look at other alternatives to the dumping of selenium into the Jordan River," said Jeff Salt, executive director of the Salt Lake County Audubon Society. "We have to worry about what's going into the wetlands."

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