Feds order company to study Nev. mine

Federal regulators have ordered Atlantic Richfield Co. to take the first major step toward cleaning up contamination at an abandoned copper mine in northern Nevada, saying it poses an “imminent and substantial threat.”

Environmental Protection Agency ordered the company to begin determining the extent of contamination at the half-century old mine Feb. 1 in an order signed Friday. The order also requires the company to prepare a plan for cleaning up the property.

“This lays out the road map for how to investigate the entire site, look at what kind of contamination is out there ”” what kind of risk we have out there and what to do to clean it up,” said Jim Sickles, EPA’s remedial project manager at the site.

Studies in 2003 found the soil and groundwater had been contaminated with uranium, apparently a radioactive byproduct of decades of chemical processing of copper, the agency said. The mine also is polluted with arsenic, beryllium, lead, mercury and selenium.

Authorities say the pollutants can cause cancer or kidney disease. Some of the chemicals have turned up in wells adjacent to the mine, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report last February.

Atlantic Richfield officials said the order caught them by surprise. The company has been “negotiating with EPA for months” on a voluntary agreement to do the “same scope of work,” said Cindy Wymore, a spokeswoman for its parent, BP.

Sickles said the EPA has made progress in talks with the company, and any voluntary agreement reached before the end of the month would supersede the order. If one isn’t reached, “this is another way to make it happen,” he said.

Local residents and environmentalists primarily blame Atlantic Richfield for the slow pace of cleanup efforts at the mine, which closed in January 2000. The company previously owned the mine, but is considered responsible for cleanup because the current owner, Anaconda Co., is in bankruptcy.

Sickles said actual cleanup of the site is expected to take several years and cost tens of millions of dollars. Determining the extent of contamination will take three to five years, Sickles said.