Mining

As mountain snow starts to melt, trickling toxic acid laced with dissolved metals — arsenic, cadmium, copper, zinc — is fouling Colorado watersheds.

Nobody dares try to stop it.

Two North Bay environmental groups are filing lawsuits against Syar Industries, challenging a recent decision to allow the gravel company to mine the Russian River near Geyserville.

For the first time, environmental groups will be able to take advantage of an EPA Good Samaritan provision created in 2007 that’s designed to speed up cleanups of watersheds and fisheries threatened by pollution from abandoned mines.

"This is one of the most heavily mined watersheds along the
Clark Fork," said Trout Unlimited restoration coordinator Rob
Roberts. "They basically turned the valley upside down. They
rerouted the creeks multiple times..."

A controversial mine that would tunnel beneath the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness may soon be back on track, despite a recent judge's order that yanked federal approval of the project.