By Ty Churchwell No one in Durango nor Silverton, Colo., will ever forget Aug. 5, 2015 — the day of the Gold King mine spill that sent 3 million gallons of ugly, toxic mine water down the Animas River in southwest part of the state. To say the accident was highly visible is an understatement. In today’s digital world, photos of the orange…
Trout Unlimited joined a bipartisan group of partners and lawmakers last week in calling on Congress to provide continued funding for the cleanup of abandoned mines and the legacy pollution of historic coal production. The House Subcommittee for Energy and Mineral Resources met to discuss H.R. 4248, which would reauthorize the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 and provide ongoing funding through 2036. TU…
Partnerships are critical to getting large tasks accomplished. That’s true in nearly every aspect of Trout Unlimited’s work: from getting legislation passed to ensuring clean water for anglers and access to public lands to habitat improvement projects to help restore native fisheries, and most certainly, for the complex nature of abandoned mine cleanup. Near Crested Butte, Colo., and up…
By Amy Wolfe It’s hard to believe that just over 20 years ago I started working with Trout Unlimited in the Kettle Creek watershed in northcentral Pennsylvania. Back then I was hired as the Coordinator for TU’s third Home Rivers Initiative. Fast forward a couple decades and now I enjoy working with many of TU’s…
Photo above: Congressman Dan Meuser (white shirt) and Earth Conservancy president/CEO Mike Dziak (speaking) during a tour of an abandoned mine reclamation site in Luzerne County, Pa. Earth Conservancy photo. There are moonscapes outside Wilkes-Barre, Pa.—piles of black culm left behind from coal mining operations before the dawn of regulation four decades ago. A local…
An abandoned mine overlooks Lion Creek drainage near Empire, Colorado By Randy Scholfield We are bouncing along in four-wheel drive vehicles, high in the Clear Creek watershed west of Denver, overlooking beautiful forest vistas and steep hillsides laced with snowmelt creeks. We are here with a group of reporters to show them a dark secret…
The North Star Mine in Silverton, Colo. Mining plays an important part to Colorado’s history. Many mountain towns were founded upon mining and some still rely on it as an economic driver. But it also left a legacy of damage and destruction to many headwater streams and rivers around the state. Trout Unlimited’s mine reclamation program balances maintaining the…
