[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

ABANDONED MINES IN THE UNITED STATES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR GOOD
SAMARITAN CLEANUPS

=======================================================================

(114-29)

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON
WATER RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

__________

OCTOBER 21, 2015

__________

Printed for the use of the
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COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania, Chairman

DON YOUNG, Alaska PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee, ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
Vice Chair Columbia
JOHN L. MICA, Florida JERROLD NADLER, New York
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey CORRINE BROWN, Florida
SAM GRAVES, Missouri EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
DUNCAN HUNTER, California RICK LARSEN, Washington
ERIC A. ``RICK'' CRAWFORD, Arkansas MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts
LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
BOB GIBBS, Ohio STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
RICHARD L. HANNA, New York ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
JEFF DENHAM, California JOHN GARAMENDI, California
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin ANDRE CARSON, Indiana
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky JANICE HAHN, California
TOM RICE, South Carolina RICHARD M. NOLAN, Minnesota
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania DINA TITUS, Nevada
RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois SEAN PATRICK MALONEY, New York
MARK SANFORD, South Carolina ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut
ROB WOODALL, Georgia LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
TODD ROKITA, Indiana CHERI BUSTOS, Illinois
JOHN KATKO, New York JARED HUFFMAN, California
BRIAN BABIN, Texas JULIA BROWNLEY, California
CRESENT HARDY, Nevada
RYAN A. COSTELLO, Pennsylvania
GARRET GRAVES, Louisiana
MIMI WALTERS, California
BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia
CARLOS CURBELO, Florida
DAVID ROUZER, North Carolina
LEE M. ZELDIN, New York

(ii)

Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment

BOB GIBBS, Ohio, Chairman

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
DUNCAN HUNTER, California DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
ERIC A. ``RICK'' CRAWFORD, Arkansas JOHN GARAMENDI, California
DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
JEFF DENHAM, California JARED HUFFMAN, California
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona
TOM RICE, South Carolina DINA TITUS, Nevada
RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois SEAN PATRICK MALONEY, New York
MARK SANFORD, South Carolina ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut
TODD ROKITA, Indiana ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
JOHN KATKO, New York Columbia
BRIAN BABIN, Texas RICHARD M. NOLAN, Minnesota
CRESENT HARDY, Nevada PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon (Ex
GARRET GRAVES, Louisiana Officio)
DAVID ROUZER, North Carolina
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania (Ex
Officio)

(iii)

CONTENTS

Page

Summary of Subject Matter........................................ vii

TESTIMONY
Panel 1

Hon. Mathy Stanislaus, Assistant Administrator, Office of Solid
Waste and Emergency Response, U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency......................................................... 5

Panel 2

Eric E. Cavazza, P.E., Director, Bureau of Abandoned Mine
Reclamation, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental
Protection, on behalf of the Interstate Mining Compact
Commission and the National Association of Abandoned Mine Land
Programs....................................................... 34
Luke Russell, Vice President of External Affairs, Hecla Mining
Company, on behalf of the National Mining Association.......... 34
Doug Young, Senior Policy Director, Keystone Policy Center....... 34
Chris Wood, President and CEO, Trout Unlimited................... 34
Lauren Pagel, Policy Director, Earthworks........................ 34

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES

Hon. Mathy Stanislaus............................................ 55
Eric E. Cavazza, P.E............................................. 60
Luke Russell..................................................... 80
Doug Young....................................................... 89
Chris Wood....................................................... 99
Lauren Pagel..................................................... 111

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

Hon. Bob Gibbs, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Ohio, request to submit the following:

Letter of October 20, 2015, from Matt Mead, Governor, State
of Wyoming and Chairman, Western Governors' Association,
and Steve Bullock, Governor, State of Montana and Vice
Chair, Western Governors' Association, to Hon. Bill
Shuster, Chairman, and Hon. Peter A. DeFazio, Ranking
Member, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure..... 115
Joint comments of R. John Dawes, Executive Director,
Foundation for Pennsylvania Watersheds, and Branden S.
Diehl, CEO, Earth Wise Consulting, on behalf of Foundation
for Pennsylvania Watersheds................................ 119
Hon. Mathy Stanislaus, Assistant Administrator, Office of Solid
Waste and Emergency Response, U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, post-hearing responses to requests for information from
the following Representatives:

Hon. Bob Gibbs of Ohio asked how many mines the EPA is
currently investigating.................................... 8
Hon. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas requested the cost of
abandoned mine cleanup..................................... 18
Hon. Cresent Hardy of Nevada asked how many contaminated
sites there are in Nevada.................................. 19
Hon. Bob Gibbs of Ohio asked if the EPA has mining engineers
on staff................................................... 20
Hon. Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona requested information on
Superfund National Priorities List sites that are
construction complete...................................... 22

ADDITIONS TO THE RECORD

Statement of John Gioia, Chair of the Board of Supervisors and
the Contra Costa County Flood Control and Water Conservation
District, Contra Costa County, California...................... 138
Statement of Laura Skaer, Executive Director, American
Exploration and Mining Association............................. 150

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

ABANDONED MINES IN THE UNITED STATES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR GOOD
SAMARITAN CLEANUPS

----------

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2015

House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:07 a.m. in
room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Bob Gibbs
(Chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Gibbs. The Subcommittee on Water Resources and
Environment, a subcommittee of the Committee on Transportation
and Infrastructure, will come to order. A couple pieces of
housekeeping.
First, I ask unanimous consent that the hearing record be
kept open for 30 days after this hearing in order to accept
written testimony for the hearing record. If there is any
objection?
[No response.]
Mr. Gibbs. Without objection, so ordered.
I will also ask unanimous consent that written testimony
submitted on behalf of the following parties be included in
this hearing's record: James Ogsbury, the executive director of
the Western Governors' Association; and John Dawes, the
executive director of the Foundation for Pennsylvania
Watersheds.
[No response.]
Mr. Gibbs. Without objection, so ordered.
I would like to welcome everybody. We are going to have two
panels, and our hearing today is about abandoned mines and the
opportunities for Good Samaritan cleanups.
Past mining activities, far removed from the sophisticated
mining practices we see today, disturbed hundreds of thousands
of acres of land, altered drainage patterns, and generated
substantial amounts of waste scattered around the Nation. Today
it is estimated there are as many as 500,000 of these old
abandoned mine sites in the United States. Many of these mines
were abandoned by the owners or operators a long time ago, once
the remaining minerals became too difficult or costly to
extract.
Although operated consistent with the laws at the time,
many--but not all--of these abandoned mines now pose
environmental and health threats to surrounding surface and
groundwaters, nearby lands, and downstream communities. It is
estimated that tens of thousands of miles of streams across the
Nation are polluted by acid mine drainage and toxic loading of
heavy metals leaching from many of these old mines, impacting
fisheries and water supplies.
State and Federal agencies have worked to remedy these
problems, as have local governments and nongovernmental
organizations, but the number of these sites and the expense
involved has made progress very slow. Some of these old mines
lack a viable owner or operator with the resources to remediate
them. Many others are truly abandoned, with no identifiable
owner or operator to hold responsible. As a result, few of
these old mine sites are getting cleaned up.
Public or private volunteers, otherwise known as Good
Samaritans, are willing to carry out a partial or complete
remediation at some of these sites. These Good Samaritans may
be driven by a desire to improve the environment. Others may
want to improve water quality at their water supply source.
Still others may want to clean up an old mine site for the
purpose of remining the area.
However, most Good Samaritans have been deterred from
carrying out these projects by the risk of becoming liable for
complete cleanup required by various environmental laws. This
is because Federal laws do not always allow for partial
cleanups. For example, if a Good Samaritan steps in to
partially clean up an abandoned mine site, the party could
become liable under the Clean Water Act or Superfund for a
greater level of cleanup and higher costs than the party
initially volunteered for.
In the end, most potential Good Samaritans refrain from
attempting to address a site's pollution problems at all
because they could face the legal consequences if they fall
short of complete cleanup.
While Superfund and the Clean Water Act have been
successful in reducing pollution from commercial and industrial
locations, these laws have also had the unforeseen consequence
of deterring cleanup at the abandoned mine sites. In other
words, laws that were designed to protect the environment may
now be inadvertently harming or discouraging the cleanup of the
environment. Our laws should encourage, rather than discourage,
parties to volunteer themselves to clean up abandoned mine
sites.
We should consider whether, in some circumstances,
environmental standards should be made more flexible in order
to achieve at least a partial cleanup of these sites that
otherwise would remain polluted. This is not about letting
polluters off the hook. Those who pollute will remain legally
responsible for the pollution they caused.
I believe there is little disagreement that encouraging
volunteers to clean up abandoned mine sites is a worthwhile
policy, since some improvement is better than no improvement.
However, in exploring the details of such a policy, a number of
issues arise, such as who should be eligible, how should new
standards be applied, and how should potential remining of
these sites be addressed.
To help us identify and address these and other issues, we
have a panel of witnesses that have been actively involved in
the debate over how to address the abandoned mines problem in
this country. I hope our witnesses will bring forward ideas on
how we can remove the impediments to abandoned mine cleanups
and get more Good Samaritans to step forward.
At this time I recognize Ranking Member Napolitano from
California.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to
the panelists and the people who are here to listen to this
very important issue.
There are numerous lessons that have been learned from the
event that occurred in southwest Colorado. First and foremost
is that, even in the absence of dramatic spills like that one
at the Gold King Mine, abandoned mines across the United States
have a significant negative impact on regional water quality
and are a major source of water pollution to America's waters.
As an example, prior to the spill in Colorado, Gold King
Mine discharged pollutant-laden water at the rate of 200
gallons per minute. Moreover, mines in the Animas River
watershed have been polluting the Animas River at the rate of
approximately 330 million gallons of acid mine drainage a year.
These ongoing discharges disastrously affect plant and animal
life in the Upper Animas Basin. So much so that the basin's
river and streams were almost entirely--almost devoid of fish,
even before the spill. This is a problem too big to ignore, not
only here in the gold mine area, but also in other parts of the
country.
Most importantly, the spill reminded us of the scope of the
problem that isn't unique to the Animas watershed. Abandoned
mines are currently polluting rivers and streams across the
country. By current estimates, approximately 500,000 abandoned
hardrock mines are located throughout the United States. Sadly,
the exact number and location of abandoned mine sites
throughout the country is unknown.
Let me repeat that: We do not know how many of these mines
exist, or where they are. And I am asking that possibly we ask
NACo [National Association of Counties], the BLM [Bureau of
Land Management], and the Forest Service to do an assessment--
and especially the Conference of Mayors and the National
Governors Association--to be able to report to us when, where,
and how they are, so we can begin to at least understand where
are the priorities that we may face in the future for some of
these spills. It is a real disaster.
And also, one of the factors we sometimes leave out is the
American tribes and their lands, who are particularly
vulnerable to this pollution. According to the United States
Geological Survey, more than 40 percent of the watersheds in or
west of the Rocky Mountains have streams in which impacts of
mining represent a potential threat to human or ecosystem
health. These mines and mines across the country carry a
variety of pollutants, including zinc, cadmium, silver, copper,
lead, and arsenic. When these mines inevitably leak, these
heavy metals and pollutants travel into the nearby rivers and
streams with disastrous water quality consequences.
Furthermore, the cost of cleaning up the sites is enormous.
Nongovernmental organizations, such as Earthworks, have
estimated that it would cost anywhere from $32 billion to $72
billion to reclaim abandoned hardrock mines located throughout
the U.S. The size and scope of the problem posed by these
mines, these abandoned mines, and the resources necessary to
address it call for action.
H.R. 963, the Hardrock Mining Reform and Reclamation Act of
2015, introduced by my boss on the left, Ranking Member
DeFazio, and the ranking member of the Committee on Natural
Resources, Representative Raul Grijalva, is a step towards the
right direction. I cosponsored the legislation because it
recognizes that Good Samaritan legislation alone will not solve
the problem. Without a dedicated fund to address abandoned
hardrock mine sites, these mines will continue to pollute
America's rivers and streams.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you and look forward to the
witnesses. Yield back.
Mr. Gibbs. At this time, since the ranking member of the
committee, the full Committee on Transportation and
Infrastructure, Mr. DeFazio, is here, I open the floor for any
remarks he would like to make.
Mr. DeFazio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I wish
I could stay for the entire hearing and pose some questions. I
have worked on this issue for many years. I have an abandoned
mine in my district, Formosa Mine, which I have visited, which
is producing 10 million gallons a year of acid drainage, and it
has destroyed prime salmon habitat and has caused other
downstream problems. It is yet another foreign bankrupt company
with inadequate bonding. And, you know, the EPA [U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency] is looking at a cleanup. But
again, we are depending upon the taxpayers.
I think Good Samaritans can play a role. And, in fact, in
the comprehensive mining reform bill which I filed as ranking
member on the Committee on Natural Resources, I did include
provisions for Good Samaritans to incorporate them. But the
problem is much bigger than Good Samaritans could ever
accomplish. As Mrs. Napolitano noted, we don't really even
have, you know, a good listing of what the magnitude of the
problem is. Many tens of billions of dollars for cleanup.
So, we need a source of funds. Otherwise, you know, these
cleanups aren't going to happen. And my comprehensive bill
would--although it is not the jurisdiction of this committee,
it would establish a royalty on hardrock mining which will be
dedicated to cleanup.
Now, everybody else in the world charges royalties. States
charge royalties, Native American tribes charge royalties,
private landowners charge royalties, foreign governments charge
royalties. Only the United States of America, where we are
going to run the Government like a business, do we not charge
royalties. Oh, but those companies pay taxes. Yeah.
You know, it is time to get real about the magnitude of
this problem. And that would be one way to approach it--would
be to have the royalty applied to dealing with it--and it would
still take many, many, many years to do these cleanups.
Secondly, I would give authority--again, under this bill,
not under the jurisdiction of this committee--to Federal
agencies to set aside particularly sensitive areas which, right
now, under the 1872 mining law, they can't do.
So that, and then, as I mentioned earlier, I have the Good
Samaritan provisions. So I am very supportive of doing what we
can to encourage Good Samaritan work, but the magnitude of the
problem far exceeds what they are going to do.
I understand also that the industry is going to propose
remining dealing with tailings and that, and that can be
appropriate in some instances. But some obligation should also
come along with that activity, you know, and that would be
something to be further discussed, if that were to be included
in legislation.
So, I really appreciate the chairman's attention to this
issue. It is, as he knows, a really big deal in the Western
United States. And I am sure there are sites affected in the
East, too. But in the West it is a really big deal. So thank
you for holding this hearing.
Mr. Gibbs. Thank you. Our first panel, we have the
Honorable Mathy Stanislaus. He is the Assistant Administrator
for the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response at the
U.S. EPA here in Washington. Welcome, Mr. Stanislaus, and the
floor is yours.

TESTIMONY OF HON. MATHY STANISLAUS, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR,
OFFICE OF SOLID WASTE AND EMERGENCY RESPONSE, U.S.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

Mr. Stanislaus. Thank you, Chairman Gibbs, Ranking Member
Napolitano and DeFazio. I am Mathy Stanislaus, Assistant
Administrator for the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency
Response.
Former and abandoned mine sites can pose public safety and
environmental hazards. These sites are located primarily in the
Western States, but not limited to the Western States. They are
among the largest sources of pollution degrading water quality
in the United States. Acid mine drainage from these mines has
polluted thousands of miles of streams and rivers as well as
groundwater, posing risk to human health, wildlife, and the
environment.
This polluted drainage can also affect local communities
and local economies by threatening drinking water and
agricultural water supplies, and limiting recreational use of
water resources.
EPA addresses a small subset of these sites. We currently
have about 137 sites that we are currently addressing from a
long-term cleanup perspective through the Superfund cleanup
program. The abandoned mine sites being addressed through EPA's
Superfund program again represent a small fraction of the
estimated number of former abandoned mines found throughout the
country.
From fiscal years 2010 through fiscal year 2014 EPA has
expended $1 billion for cleanup at these sites. Of this amount,
close to $600 million has come from taxpayer resources through
the appropriations process, as well as about $470 million
coming from responsible parties.
Although the estimates vary, there are likely hundreds of
thousands of former abandoned hardrock mines through the United
States. In 2011 the U.S. Government Accountability Office
testimony reported there were at least 161,000 abandoned
hardrock mine sites in the 12 Western States and Alaska, and at
least 33,000 of these sites had degraded the environment by
contaminating surface water, groundwater, or leaving arsenic-
contaminated tailings piles. In Colorado alone the State has
identified approximately 23,000 former mines.
Former and abandoned mine lands exist across private,
mixed, Federal, and State lands. This mixture of land ownership
adds to the complexity of this issue. Federal programs that
address former and abandoned mines are spread among a variety
of Federal agencies with no one agency having overall statutory
responsibility. Principally, five Federal agencies, including
EPA, provide Federal funding for the cleanup of some of these
hardrock mining sites.
As to abandoned hardrock mining sites and Good Samaritan
issues, over the years EPA has heard from stakeholders about
liability concerns, principally under the Clean Water Act and
the Superfund, or the Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Compensation, and Liability Act, that could deter voluntary
efforts. To address these concerns, in 2007 EPA issued an
administrative tool to provide strong protections for Good
Samaritans regarding potential Superfund liability.
The Agency's interim guidance and the model Good Samaritan
Agreement and comfort/status letter can be used to provide
greater legal certainty for volunteers to move forward to
provide adequate measures to the Agency that a cleanup will be
performed properly. These tools were intended to address the
cleanup of relatively small projects by Good Samaritans at
orphan mine sites to accelerate partial or complete cleanup of,
again, relatively small projects to result in very good
environmental improvements.
Further, in 2012, EPA issued a memo to provide
clarification that, in general, Good Samaritans would not be
the entity responsible under the Clean Water Act to obtain a
discharge permit after the completion of the cleanup work under
a CERCLA [Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation,
and Liability Act] cleanup plan developed pursuant to an
administrative settlement agreement. Thus, these administrative
tools address many of the Good Samaritan issues raised to EPA
by stakeholders over the years.
In closing, there are, again, hundreds of thousands of
former and abandoned hardrock mine sites located throughout the
country, posing environmental hazards, and among the largest
sources of pollution degrading water quality, particularly in
the Western United States. The scope of the problem cannot be
addressed solely by current Federal or State cleanup programs.
Much more must be done to address the risk posed by former and
abandoned hardrock mines. Encouraging Good Samaritan cleanups
is just one of the many tools needed to address the complex and
costly problems posed by polluting former and abandoned
hardrock mines.
Other tools, including additional resources for cleanup of
these sites within the EPA's jurisdiction and financial
assurance by mining companies to make sure that adequate
financial resources are there when a mining site gets
abandoned, could be addressed.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to your questions.
Mr. Gibbs. Thank you, and I will start off some questions.
You are talking about the EPA's administrative tools. I
guess my first question is how effectively they have worked. I
think the last one was put out in 2012. And it is my
understanding is that, under the Good Samaritan kind of program
through these administrative tools, there has only been--only
one mine has been taken up, is that correct--since 2012 under
Good Samaritan, only one mine?
Mr. Stanislaus. I believe that is correct, one mine has
been addressed. And there have been a number of other mines
that various entities have approached EPA.
Mr. Gibbs. So would you concur that the changes that EPA
made in 2012 are taking effect, are working, or have they had a
negligible effect?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, what we believe is that it addresses
the issues of liability on a Superfund for being a responsible
party, as well as responsibility for the discharged post the
cleanup. And those are the big issues that have been raised----
Mr. Gibbs. Well, then how come there aren't more Good
Samaritans? I know on our second panel coming up, when we are
through with this panel, in their testimony they are saying
that there are lots of Good Samaritans out there, including a
couple of people that are representing entities that are going
to testify in the next panel. They say that they have had to
back away because the tools aren't there giving liability
protection--not the conflict in the law, you know, because you
just said in the 2012 administrative rule you wouldn't have to
get NPDES [National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System]
permits under section 402. But apparently, it is not working if
there has only been one taker.
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes. I really don't have any information as
to what are the factors regarding whether there are a large
number of Good Samaritans, and what are the factors they have
decided to pursue or not pursue.
What we believe we have done is we have addressed the
liability concerns from the Superfund and Clean Water Act
perspective, and we are open to further refinement.
Mr. Gibbs. OK. Back in 2006 the EPA proposed legislation
that would provide liability protections for Good Samaritans.
Does EPA still support that proposal? If not, why not?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, you know, since that time we have, in
fact, clarified the liability on Superfund and on the Clean
Water Act. So I believe that we have addressed the concerns.
Again, we continue to want to--if the chairman----
Mr. Gibbs. I think it still goes back to the fact that we
just don't have entities taking up the initiative to go and
work on these cleanups, and that is evidenced by the testimony
in our next panel. So I guess my message to you, as the EPA
Assistant Administrator on this, is that those administrative
tools, even though they were well intentioned, are not working,
because we still have this issue of all these abandoned mines.
Now, do you concur that there are over half-a-million
abandoned mines in this country?
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes. Actually, the only specific number I
have in front of me is the GAO [Government Accountability
Office] study. Your number of 500,000 is probably in the
ballpark, so--yes.
Mr. Gibbs. I am curious how many mines is the EPA
investigating right now?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, investigating, I don't have the--we
have 137 where EPA is involved in long-term cleanup.
Mr. Gibbs. Are these primarily hardrock mines, or are they
gold--what kind of mines are they?
Mr. Stanislaus. I believe the 137 are hardrock mines----
Mr. Gibbs. OK.
Mr. Stanislaus. I can clarify that. In terms of other mines
that we are investigating, I don't have that information in
front of me, but I can get it to you.
[The information follows:]

Attached is a list of 139 mining related NPL sites in response
to a request from Chairman Gibbs. Mr. Stanislaus referenced 137
sites, but this list now includes the recently NPL proposed
sites Bonita Peak and Argonaut mines. The table provides
information about mining and mineral processing sites proposed
for, listed on, and deleted from the National Priorities List
(NPL) as well as mining sites being cleaned up using the
Superfund Alternative Approach (SAA). The table includes NPL
status (i.e., proposed [P], final [F], deleted [D], or not on
the NPL [N]). For those sites that have reached the
construction complete stage, the date when they reached the CC
status is provided.

Mining and Mineral Processing National Priorities List Sites as of April 21, 2016
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Superfund
Region EPA Id Site Name NPL Status Alternative CC Date
Code Agreement Flag
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
01 MED980524128 CALLAHAN MINING CORP F N
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
01 VTD988366621 ELIZABETH MINE F N
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
01 VTD988366571 ELY COPPER MINE F N
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
01 VTD988366720 PIKE HILL COPPER MINE F N
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
02 NJD980785646 GLEN RIDGE RADIUM SITE D N 9/15/2005
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
02 NYD986882660 LI TUNGSTEN CORP. F N 9/25/2008
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
02 NJD980529762 MAYWOOD CHEMICAL CO. F N
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
02 NJD980785653 MONTCLAIR/WEST ORANGE RADIUM SITE D N 9/15/2005
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
02 NJD002365930 SHIELDALLOY CORP. F N
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
02 NJD980654172 U.S. RADIUM CORP. F N 9/28/2006
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
02 NJ1891837980 W.R. GRACE & CO., INC./WAYNE D N 9/16/2003
INTERIM STORAGE SITE (USDOE)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
03 PAD000436436 AMBLER ASBESTOS PILES D N 8/30/1993
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
03 PAD987341716 AUSTIN AVENUE RADIATION SITE D N 9/27/1999
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
03 PAD077087989 FOOTE MINERAL CO. F N 10/28/2010
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
03 PASFN0305549 FRANKLIN SLAG PILE (MDC) F N
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
03 PAD980829493 JACKS CREEK/SITKIN SMELTING & F N 12/23/2004
REFINING, INC.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
03 PAD002395887 PALMERTON ZINC PILE F N
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
03 VAD980705404 U.S. TITANIUM F N 8/25/1997
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
04 SCN000407714 BARITE HILL/NEVADA GOLDFIELDS F N
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
04 SCD987577913 BREWER GOLD MINE F N
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
04 TND987768546 CHEMET CO. D N 5/15/1996
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
04 TN0001890839 COPPER BASIN MINING DISTRICT N Y
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
04 SCN000407376 HENRY'S KNOB S Y
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
04 SCD003360476 MACALLOY CORPORATION F N 9/26/2006
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
04 KYD049062375 NATIONAL SOUTHWIRE ALUMINUM CO. D N 9/24/2008
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
04 NCN000409895 ORE KNOB MINE F N
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Mr. Gibbs. OK. Well, the next round of questions I want to
get more. I have two goals here today: to figure out what we
can do, legislatively, to improve the Good Samaritan. You, as
the EPA, are you agreeable that that is an issue, that we
should take a legislative proposal to try to fix some of these
problems?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, you know, we will certainly
participate with you and the committee on any legislative
efforts. Frankly, we don't know whether it is a legal gap, or
whether it is a perception gap that inhibits, or whether there
is a cost issue that inhibits Good Samaritans working for us.
Mr. Gibbs. And the second goal I want to get to too is the
role of the EPA in these abandoned mines. And we will get to
the spill in August, you know, what is happening there. But at
this time I am going to turn the line of questions over to Mrs.
Napolitano, and we will get to that in the next round.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you so very much, sir.
Mr. Stanislaus, there are three different acts that most
mines have to be able to help pay for the cleanup: the Oil
Pollution Act; SMCRA [Surface Mining Control and Reclamation
Act]; and Superfund. What about hardrock?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, within EPA's jurisdiction, hardrock
mines that cause a significant enough risk to rivers and to
public health----
Mrs. Napolitano. And?
Mr. Stanislaus. And then we address them. We have 137 sites
that we are addressing through the Superfund program and our
limited resources.
Mrs. Napolitano. But do the miners of the hardrock pay into
the fund, or--to be able to clean up like the others?
Mr. Stanislaus. That is the taxpayer--that is the normal
appropriations process.
Mrs. Napolitano. That means the taxpayer.
Mr. Stanislaus. That is right.
Mrs. Napolitano. In 1972 there was a fee charged per acre.
How much was that?
Mr. Stanislaus. That I would not know.
Mrs. Napolitano. $2 per acre.
Mr. Stanislaus. OK.
Mrs. Napolitano. A concern is, of course, is that some of
these hardrock mines are creating problems, but--and we have
folks that agree that there should be a way to be able to hold
them accountable to--for the cleanup. So those are questions
that I might have.
Over the years there--the taxpayers have been left to clean
up the mess. Is this concept similar in approach taken by the
administration to propose a fee for hardrock mine operations to
address this legacy?
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes, the administration has, in fact,
proposed a fee to pay for the cleanup of these hardrock mines.
Mrs. Napolitano. What is that fee being proposed?
Mr. Stanislaus. I am sorry, when or----
Mrs. Napolitano. How, how much?
Mr. Stanislaus. Oh. That is brought by the Department of
the Interior, and I don't know the specifics of that----
Mrs. Napolitano. Oh, OK, that is fine. Would Good Samaritan
legislation be more impactful if it appeared with increased
funding?
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes, I think that the comprehensive
solution to the hundreds of thousands of sites requires a
comprehensive solution. So EPA has a sliver through additional
Superfund resources. Other Federal agencies have
responsibility, as well. Clearly, a dedicated pot of money to
deal with the cleanup of that--and Good Samaritan does play a
role, but it is only one of the many tools that are necessary
to deal with the comprehensive problem.
Mrs. Napolitano. Well, earlier this year the administration
proposed to create the Abandoned Mine Lands program, the AML,
through a new fee. How important is this, creation of this, to
help clean up?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, clearly, the administration put
forward that because there is a significant gap. We have
hundreds of thousands of sites----
Mrs. Napolitano. What are they basing it on? Because if
there is--if they are finding out this is a need, what are they
basing this need on?
Mr. Stanislaus. Again, that specific information is
probably best answered by Department of the Interior, how they
calculated that, so----
Mrs. Napolitano. Well, then, what are some of the tools
that EPA has at its disposal to address these abandoned mines?
Mr. Stanislaus. The tools that EPA has, again, it is a
small subset, where it is high enough risk where it comes to
our attention, we do investigation and then we develop a
cleanup plan to clean up----
Mrs. Napolitano. But only if it comes to your attention.
Mr. Stanislaus. That is right.
Mrs. Napolitano. You don't have something that outlines the
priorities these mines might have.
Mr. Stanislaus. No. We don't have a mine program, per se.
It is abandoned mines, among other kinds of contaminated sites
where----
Mrs. Napolitano. Does the Conference of Mayors and National
Governors Association ever relate to EPA any of their needs of
prioritizing, and is part of that 137 that you are talking
about included?
Mr. Stanislaus. I have not had any exchange with the
Governors or the mayors association regarding this topic, so--
--
Mrs. Napolitano. Well, maybe we should start looking at
that, because they are the ones who are going to have to be
impacted by their pollution, or by their emergency--ability to
clean it up.
What steps has EPA taken under the existing regulatory
framework to encourage more Good Samaritans to restore
watersheds?
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes, again, going back to the issues that
Good Samaritans have identified--that is the potential
liability concerns--we have clarified that if a Good Samaritan
goes in and does a cleanup, they would not be held liable under
the Superfund program, and then, once they are done with the
cleanup, they would not have to get a discharge permit under
the Clean Water Act.
Mrs. Napolitano. Well, does the use of the Superfund on
abandoned mines impact your ability to remediate other
nonmining toxic sites?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, clearly, we have a limited set of
resources. Every year we have a backlog of sites. So, I mean--
--
Mrs. Napolitano. So you do not have enough budget to be
able to carry out the needs.
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes. The need is greater than the amount of
resources that we have in the Superfund program.
Mrs. Napolitano. Would then the inventory of these
abandoned mines throughout the Nation--not just on Federal
lands--including Native American lands, help the resource for--
be a helpful resource?
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes. I mean it could be that there are
other agencies probably in a better position for that. We do
have an inventory of the highest risk Superfund sites. But,
again, our role on mining sites is relatively small in those
circumstances.
Mrs. Napolitano. Mr. Chairman, I would like to be able to
have a list of those mines that are in the 137 list that you
have, so we can help identify and maybe get further information
from not only the Members of Congress, but also their
Governors, to find out how they are going to be--should they
have--how would I say--an unfortunately catastrophe on their
hands.
Mr. Stanislaus. Sure, we will get that.
Mrs. Napolitano. And I would like to be able to put in more
questions later. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Gibbs. Mr. Babin?
Dr. Babin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, Mr. Stanislaus, I
had a couple of questions I wanted to talk to you, ask you
about.
In regards to the big spill into the Animas River, had a
private-sector company spilled more than 3 million gallons of
pollutants into a water body, how would the EPA have responded?
For instance, in 2014, in the Elk River near Charleston,
West Virginia, several thousand gallons of chemicals--not 3
million, just several thousand gallons--were released. What
happened to the company that was responsible? What happened to
its executives? They faced strong enforcement and bankruptcy
from the EPA. The executives faced criminal charges. How should
the EPA be treated, in light of the fact that it spilled 400
times as many gallons of pollutants into the water of the
Animas River during the Gold King Mine disaster?
Mr. Stanislaus. So, from a response perspective, the
response is identical. In terms of responsibility for, and the
facts surrounding that, we have done an internal review, and we
have disclosed that. There is an independent review being done
by the Department of the Interior, and we are going to wait to
see the results of that, and whether proper procedures were
followed or not.
Dr. Babin. OK. Well, how will the EPA clean up the Gold
Mine site? Will it use existing funds from its fiscal year 2015
to 2016 budgets, or is the taxpayer going to have to foot the
bill in the President's fiscal year 2017 budget that will be
submitted next February?
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes, to put it in context, the Animas River
and the mining complex, there was about 330 million gallons per
year being released into the Animas River. The whole reason
that the State of Colorado and stakeholders asked EPA to be
involved was because of those releases. And we got involved to
address the mining complex and the entire State of Colorado,
which had the highest risk to river quality, so that is why we
were involved, and we used Superfund resources to address the
request of the State and stakeholders.
Dr. Babin. OK. Well, you didn't answer my question about
how it is going to be paid for. You said Superfund funds, but
the--which budget is that going to come out of? And will it be
new funds from the 2017 budget, or is it going to be from the
2015 and 2016 budget?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, the cost incurred to date is based on
our current budget. Clearly, there are--the stakeholders have
asked, and we are engaged in the process of whether they should
be designated a Superfund site. So we are going through that
process right now.
If it were to be designated a Superfund site, we would then
pursue responsible parties, if they are around. If they are not
around, then we would use the Superfund resources that are
allocated, appropriated, on a yearly basis.
Dr. Babin. So you don't know just yet. Is that what you are
saying?
Mr. Stanislaus. That is right.
Dr. Babin. The EPA has admitted it took longer than 24
hours to notify parties of a release, and that was the Navajo
Tribe--including the Navajo Tribe. What is the law regarding
this notification requirement, and why did the EPA not follow
the law?
Mr. Stanislaus. That is actually not entirely correct.
Notification occurred approximately an hour, an hour-and-a-half
from the incident. We have----
Dr. Babin. You notified the Navajos in an hour-and-a-half?
Mr. Stanislaus. No. If I can, notification to the immediate
vicinity stakeholders, to the town of the city of Durango, that
occurred within an hour, an hour-and-a-half. And we acknowledge
that Navajo, New Mexico, there was a delayed notification. All
notification occurred before the plume, before any of those
downstream users of the river were impacted.
And actually, the notification occurred to enable pre-
impact sampling, so we can compare that with, once the plume
impacted those areas.
Dr. Babin. Well, it is a mystery to me why the Governor of
New Mexico did not hear about the EPA spill from the EPA and,
instead, had to find out from the Navajos.
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes.
Dr. Babin. That the spill had occurred.
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, that is a fair criticism. I mean I
think that, we, working with the States, can do better. I
issued a memo to really ramp up the broader notification.
Incidents like this, which is multistate, a larger regional
issue, we should do a better job. We are in the process of
augmenting the notification process, which is done jointly with
EPA and States.
Dr. Babin. OK. While EPA has had years of experience in
cleaning up Superfund sites, what expertise does EPA and its
remediation contractors have in dealing with abandoned mine
sites? Does EPA remediation contractors have particular
expertise in mining engineering and abandoned mine cleanup
technologies? And why should the EPA be the lead Federal agency
in even cleaning up mine sites?
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes, with respect to this particular site
and other mining sites like this, we bring together, both
internally and externally, the kind of expertise that deal with
the cleanup of abandoned mines.
Dr. Babin. Thank you.
Mr. Stanislaus. OK.
Mr. Gibbs. Thank you. Ms. Johnson, you are recognized.
Ms. Johnson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. In 2011 the
Government Accountability Office, or the GAO, could not come to
a definitive estimate on the number of hardrock mines on
Federal or other lands. How critical is it, having this
information, and determining the scope and nature of the
abandoned mines across the country?
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes, I mean, I think more information on
the number of mines is important. But equally, and probably
more important, is the subset of mines that have the highest
risk to river quality. So I would say it is not just a number,
but also the data behind those mines.
Ms. Johnson. And there are different statutes that are
sometimes conflicting as to whose responsibility it is. I know
that EPA is blamed for everything. But I am trying to determine
at what point does EPA get the full responsibility after a mine
is abandoned?
Mr. Stanislaus. Again, EPA has an extremely small role in
this situation. So EPA--again, we are currently involved in 137
sites where we are doing long-term cleanup. There is a larger--
relatively small additional number where we do investigations.
So, the small subset that have the highest risk, where we
get involved--and those--the cleanups are fairly big. I mean
there are hundreds of millions of dollars of cleanup for those
kind of mining situations.
Ms. Johnson. What would you estimate the budget needs to be
to take the responsibility for all the abandoned mines?
Mr. Stanislaus. You know, we don't really have a good
estimate on that. I had an estimate done by somebody else, and
I don't really have that in front of me.
Ms. Johnson. But I would suspect it would be quite large.
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes. I can get you that--we have not done
an estimate. I know there are estimates done by others, and we
can get that to you.
[The information follows:]

Representative Johnson requested cost of mine cleanup--Mr.
Stanislaus was referring to a GAO study: ABANDONED MINES:
Information on the Number of Hardrock Mines, Cost of Cleanup,
and Value of Financial Assurances, GAO-11-834T: Published: Jul
14, 2011. Publicly Released: Jul 14, 2011. See: http://
www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-834T.

Ms. Johnson. Has the process been updated to determine at
what point EPA takes on the full responsibility or at what
point does the private mine lose its responsibility for
cleanup?
Mr. Stanislaus. So first, you know, EPA generally gets
involved when a State--typically, in the mining situations,
where the State asks us to be involved because of the magnitude
of the mine and the risk. So that is how we typically get
involved.
Mr. Johnson. Is it a frequent thing that the private
mines--owners or supervisors or whatever--go out of business,
abandon or change their name so that they cannot be held
responsible?
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes. Well, again, let me answer the second
part of your question first. So, EPA would pursue a viable
responsible party, if they exist. And our experience is many of
these sites don't have a viable responsible party who is there
to pay for those resources. And I should note that is one of
the reasons we are pursuing a financial assurance rule to
partly address that issue.
Ms. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Gibbs. Mr. Hardy?
Mr. Hardy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, I am from
Mesquite, Nevada, which--Nevada--some would believe that, when
they think of Nevada, they think of Las Vegas. But its roots
are really in the field of mining. Literally, thousands of
mines were opened up in Nevada before it even became a State.
It was in a territory. So there's, literally, thousands of open
mines out there, hardrock mines, small ones and some larger
ones.
With that being said, can you tell me how many contaminated
sites there are in Nevada?
Mr. Stanislaus. I can't tell you, no.
Mr. Hardy. Could I get that information?
Mr. Stanislaus. The information that the EPA has, sure.
Mr. Hardy. Yes, that is all I am asking.
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes.
[The information follows:]

Representative Hardy requested a list of contaminated sites in
Nevada: Carson River Mercury Site and Rio Tinto Copper Mine.

Mr. Hardy. All you have, not anything else.
You know, Nevada's nickname was ``The Silver State,'' so it
is a big issue in Nevada. It is still one of its better paying
job commodities in Nevada.
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to sit and question
Administrator McCarthy. And I am going to go along the same
lines of questioning with you that I did with her. And I
appreciate that you have a chemical engineering mind, so you
know the value of having that background. Is that correct?
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes.
Mr. Hardy. How many archeological--or geological engineers
do you have?
Mr. Stanislaus. I don't know, but I can get that to you.
Mr. Hardy. How many hydrological?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, similarly, I can give you a breakout
of the various disciplines that we have----
Mr. Hardy. Information we had from that meeting, none. We
have more on this committee than you have in the EPA.
And so, with that questioning, I ask myself, you are trying
to move forward in implementing some kind of cleanup process,
words of your testimony, the ``effort to reduce risks posed by
contaminated land.'' Do you believe that this, what you come up
with, is going to be one size fits all for every State?
Mr. Stanislaus. I am sorry, are you referring to the Good
Samaritan----
Mr. Hardy. Yes.
Mr. Stanislaus. I think so, because the issues of Superfund
liability may arise around the country. So we think the issue
of an innocent party, a Good Samaritan going in and wanting to
go and do some really good work, and being protected from
Superfund liability while they are doing their work and long-
term responsibility, it would apply wherever.
Mr. Hardy. OK. What--I would like to go a little further
with this. Is the--it may be--on the protection of legal
issues, but without having the expertise to actually develop
this through hydrological and geological sites, how do you plan
on implementing that plan? I mean where do you get the
expertise from that?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, the goal of the Good Samaritan
administrative tools is for an outside entity to develop a plan
that we would review, and that would be part of the agreement.
But I am pretty confident that we have the expertise to review
those plans.
Mr. Hardy. OK. I guess one of the reasons I bring this up
is I am introducing a bill that happens to have--it is H.R.
3734, and it has to do with education and mining. Those funds
have been cut over the last 20 years, and continue to be
diverted somewhere else--even more than that. We are at a
shortage of those type of engineers, mining engineers. So I am
hoping that my colleagues will look at maybe endorsing this
bill to help bring some of that expertise on that, it helps
folks like you better manage your job and better fulfill your
field in these aspects.
But along with that being said, my frustration since Nevada
has become a State, these mines--not only do they have to
submit to the EPA and the administration, all administrations,
the environmental side of issues, of how to open these mines,
but they also have closure within that process.
Why are we not--I mean does there seem to be a problem here
in other States that I am missing? Because Nevada has--you can
open the mine once you are approved, and you have to meet
certain closure sites. Some of these came well before it was a
State, I understand. But we don't have a lot of water, so we
don't get a lot of water contamination in Nevada with these
type of mines.
But I guess I am just trying to understand why we are not
forcing these closures the way they should be--when they submit
the plan, you should be following through their plan, instead
of having to redevelop that. And it shouldn't be--have to have
some Superfund, in most cases, other than to protect that
somebody doesn't go out of business, and shouldn't have to be
able to protect these folks that want to do it as the--on their
dollar. I appreciate that.
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, I think you are exactly right.
Ideally, when you have a new mine opened up, you do have to
have a closure plan, and have adequate financial assurances.
And just to underscore, the large, overwhelming majority of
these mining sites are managed by States. I know you are going
to hear from a State witness later on. And that is, frankly,
where it should be the lead, with the Federal Government
providing a supplement.
We are engaged with the States and other stakeholders,
whether augmentation or financial assurances are necessary,
because there are gaps between just closure and safe closure.
That has arisen, and is a reason for our involvement from a
Superfund perspective.
Mr. Hardy. Thank you. I have another question, but my time
is out.
Mr. Gibbs. Before I move on to the next question, for a
matter of clarification for the record, did I hear you say the
EPA does not have a mining engineer or a hydrologic engineer on
staff, but that you rely on the private-sector contractors?
Mr. Stanislaus. No. I said we have a mixture. We have
expertise in-house, engineering, and hydrogeological expertise,
and then, on a side-by-side basis, we also bring to bear----
Mr. Gibbs. So the EPA does have mining engineers on staff?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, we have folks involved experienced in
mining and cleaning up mining sites.
Mr. Gibbs. They are not engineers, though.
Mr. Stanislaus. Mining engineers, I will have to get back
to you.
Mr. Gibbs. I believe you don't, but----
Mr. Stanislaus. OK.
[The information follows:]

Chairman Gibbs' inquiry regarding EPA mining engineers: EPA
Region 8's mining coordinator has a Mining Engineering degree
from Colorado School of Mines. The EPA On Scene Coordinator
(OSC) on-site during the incident has a Geological Engineering
degree from Colorado School of Mines. Additionally, EPA
contractors include staff with science and engineering
backgrounds, and Region 8 consults with state partners at the
Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment and
Division of Reclamation and Mine Safety who have many years of
experience in mine site remediation. In conducting mining-
related operations, the EPA uses private companies with mining
engineers to conduct mine remediation work.

Mr. Gibbs. OK. Mrs. Kirkpatrick?
Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking
Member, for having this hearing. As you know, this spill
impacted my district fairly directly. I represent the Navajo
Nation, and also the city of Page, which is on Lake Powell. And
we were in immediate contact with your department, and also
with those communities, as this unfolded.
And when I went to the city of Page for a meeting with
their chamber, with their school superintendent, with community
leaders, I learned that there is an overarching plan to do
cleanup of these mines, but evidently there is a lack of
funding. And I have since learned that about $300 million has
been cut from the EPA's budget, which should be directed toward
that cleanup.
But you mentioned in your answer to my colleague's line of
questioning about a safe closure of a mine. Would you just
describe for the committee what that entails, and about what
the cost would be? Because I know there are hundreds, maybe
thousands of mines along the San Juan River that have not been
safely closed. So just describe for us what that means, what
that entails.
Mr. Stanislaus. Sure, I will try to do my best. I may need
to supplement that after the hearing, but we are looking at the
need to have more comprehensive financial assurance, because
our experience is that the mines that are being closed are
being inadequately closed, from an environmental perspective.
The most acute is acid mine drainage issues, which impact
rivers, so that we want to make sure, with respect to the rule
that we are pursuing, that enough financial assurance covers
not just base reclamation, but comprehensive closure, and also
addressing acid mine drainage.
Does that answer your question?
Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Not exactly. I would like to know a
little more detail about--because my understanding, from
talking to people in the area, is a lot of these mine shafts
from various mines are connected. And so you might be dealing
with--and I am just using a hypothetical at this point, but 10
to 15 different mining operations that are directly connected,
in terms of the cleanup.
I am just trying to get an idea of the impact and the
magnitude of trying to safely close these mines.
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes. I may need to get back to you more
with more comprehensive----
Mrs. Kirkpatrick. That is fine.
Mr. Stanislaus. And you are absolutely right. We need to
separate long-term abandoned mines, which are interconnected
complexes. So you have to deal with it from a whole-area
perspective.
Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Right.
Mr. Stanislaus. So----
Mrs. Kirkpatrick. And I guess my point is that this is
fairly complicated.
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes.
Mrs. Kirkpatrick. It is not just simply, you know, putting
up a door on an old abandoned mine shaft, that it is--but let's
visit some more about that.
My other question is have there been closures of abandoned
mines and cleanups that you consider successful? And, if you
can, give us an example of that.
Mr. Stanislaus. Sure. Of the 137 or so--I can get back to
you with a list, and----
Mrs. Kirkpatrick. OK.
Mr. Stanislaus [continuing]. With the elements of the
cleanup.
[The information follows:]

Representative Kirkpatrick requested information on Superfund
NPL sites that are construction complete: These are listed as
``CC'' in the table on page 8.

Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you. I appreciate that.
And then, my last point is that, you know, 215 miles of the
Navajo Nation are along the San Juan River, and that is
agricultural land. So I was late getting to this committee,
because I was in a Committee on Agriculture hearing. But we are
really concerned about soil contamination. So I hope that you
will continue to monitor that water, but also the soil, because
we have reason to believe that this contamination has been
going on for a long time.
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes. Clearly, it is a long-term issue. And
so at least most immediately we are in discussions with the
Navajo and all other stakeholders about a long-term monitoring
plan. There are also separate conversations about potential
Superfund listings. So that is all in the works.
Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Sure.
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes.
Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. Gibbs. Mr. Rice, any questions?
Mr. Rice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me ask you this, since there is apparently no
accountability in this administration. Was anybody fired over
this 3-million-gallon spill of toxic chemicals into this river?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, again, as I answered earlier, from a
response perspective, we have moved forward, we will continue
to move forward. From an accountability perspective, we have
done internal review and----
Mr. Rice. Was anybody fired?
Mr. Stanislaus. No.
Mr. Rice. OK. Was anybody disciplined?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, again, we are waiting for independent
investigations by the Department of the Interior and the Office
of Inspector General----
Mr. Rice. That is what I thought.
Mr. Stanislaus [continuing]. To determine whether----
Mr. Rice. How long----
Mr. Stanislaus [continuing]. Were followed or not.
Mr. Rice. This gold mine was closed, right?
Mr. Stanislaus. I am sorry?
Mr. Rice. This gold mine was closed?
Mr. Stanislaus. It was abandoned, that is right.
Mr. Rice. How long has it been abandoned?
Mr. Stanislaus. I think the most recent activity was a
couple of decades ago.
Mr. Rice. OK. And so, the company that did it, it no longer
exists, or it does exist?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, one of the companies does exist.
Mr. Rice. OK. And do they bear some of the financial
responsibility?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, they are clearly a responsible party,
and EPA's plan is to pursue----
Mr. Rice. Have they been paying for the maintenance of the
mine?
Mr. Stanislaus. Have they been paying for the maintenance
of----
Mr. Rice. You don't know?
Mr. Stanislaus. I don't know the answer.
Mr. Rice. OK. On new mines--you know, you raise some
interesting issues. You said you are looking at additional
financial assurance. I know there is the Haile Gold Mine in
South Carolina they are looking at reopening right now. And I
know the Army Corps of Engineers has been very involved in
looking at remediation.
There is apparently a Federal and a State permitting
process, correct?
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes, depends on--yes, I don't know the
particular situation, but it can depend on the mine.
Mr. Rice. OK. Oh, it depends on the mine. So certain mines,
there is no Federal permitting process for?
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes, I believe that is--some mines are on
Federal property, some mines are mixed ownership, some mines
are private.
Mr. Rice. OK. So if there is a mine on private property
that is going to produce some toxic material, there is no
Federal permitting requirement for that?
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes, not from a--well, let me get back to
you--because other Federal agencies have various other
responsibilities on mining sites, so let me get back to you
with where Federal authority would touch on mining sites.
Mr. Rice. OK. If there--well then, let's just limit it to
mines on Federal property. Is there some kind of a Federal
permitting requirement for that? If I wanted to open a mine on
Federal property, would I have to get a Federal permit to do
that?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well----
Mr. Rice. Would you guys review it? Would you approve it?
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes, there is a review process.
Mr. Rice. All right. And I wouldn't have to give you clear
bond or financial assurance that I had the capability to clean
it up when I got through? Surely to God I would have to give
you that.
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, yes. Some bonds are actually in
place. State programs and some bonding or financial assurance
are done through Federal programs, most notably BLM and Forest
Service.
Mr. Rice. OK. So we are talking about Federal property
again. If I was going to do it on Federal property, I wouldn't
have to give you very clear assurance that I had the capability
and set aside the money to clean that site up?
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes. So I think the question is whether
that financial assurance, be it through a State program or a
Federal program, is adequate. And what our experience has been,
there have been enough mining sites where the closure and
reclamation--there is a gap to deal with the environmental
issues.
Mr. Rice. All right. There is obviously State regulators, I
would assume, in every State that deals with this. Right?
Mr. Stanislaus. That is right.
Mr. Rice. And I would assume that they all would require
bonding and financial assurance also. Right?
Mr. Stanislaus. That is right.
Mr. Rice. So it is really not a problem for new mines, is
it?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, that is currently what we are
examining. We are looking at where there are gaps between
financial assurance, whether it is done by State programs----
Mr. Rice. OK.
Mr. Stanislaus [continuing]. Or a Federal program.
Mr. Rice. And this--and what about continuously operating
mines? Let's say mines that were open--have been open for
decades. There is a big copper mine out there in the West,
Kennecott. Surely they are setting aside reclamation money.
Surely they have set aside enough money to close the mine. Is
that right?
Mr. Stanislaus. I wouldn't know.
Mr. Rice. Gosh, you are the EPA. You don't know that?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, again, EPA is not----
Mr. Rice. What do you do from 9 to 5?
Mr. Stanislaus. I am sorry? I am sorry? I couldn't hear
you.
Mr. Rice. Look----
Mr. Stanislaus. No----
Mr. Rice. What I want to----
Mr. Stanislaus. No, sir. We are very much----
Mr. Rice. I mean I want to avoid this problem happening
again.
Mr. Stanislaus. We are involved in dealing with the risk of
these sites----
Mr. Rice. I want to have--I want to avoid this problem
happening again. And surely you are not going to let people--
the EPA is not going to let people open these mines and create
these toxic situations without putting aside adequate reserves
to close the mine. Is that true or is that not true?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, clearly, the shared responsibility
across the Federal Government is for that to be the case. And
that is--currently we are examining that, not only from a
Federal perspective, but from a State perspective.
Mr. Rice. Wow. OK. This Gold King Mine, you say it has been
closed for decades. And you don't know who is paying for the
monitoring of that site and the cleanup of that site. You don't
know that.
Mr. Stanislaus. [No response.]
Mr. Rice. You don't know if--you said that there are some
surviving companies from this Gold King Mine. They are not
bearing the responsibility for this?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, again----
Mr. Rice. I mean I know----
Mr. Stanislaus. Immediately----
Mr. Rice. I know if EPA went in there and busted out their
dam and let all this toxic water loose, then I am sure that EPA
or their contractors have some liability. But for the ongoing
maintenance of this mine, if there are viable parties still
existing that mine this ore, don't they bear the ultimate
financial responsibility for this?
Mr. Stanislaus. That is right, if financial resources are
in existence.
Just to be clear, over the past decades it has been at the
lead of the State of Colorado dealing with the stabilization,
dealing with the sites. We--EPA recently got involved at the
request of the State and local stakeholders.
Mr. Rice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gibbs. A couple points of clarification. I think in the
last round of questions there about the mines in Colorado, I
believe there are three.
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes, I believe that is----
Mr. Gibbs. And one of them has been putting millions of
dollars in helping to clean up, and the other two are--there's
no owners. Is that correct? They are totally abandoned. I mean
there is no responsible party. There is one party there, one of
the----
Mr. Stanislaus. For one of the mines, that is right.
Mr. Gibbs. Has been investing dollars to try to do cleanup.
For clarification.
Also, for clarification on the question about financial
assurance, is it true that the financial assurance only applies
to active mines trying to do a closure? So the issue at these
abandoned mines, where we got this--it is more than two
decades, I think it is about a century--that are totally
abandoned, that is--really, a moot discussion. There is no
financial assurance.
Mr. Stanislaus. That is correct.
Mr. Gibbs. OK, thank you. Mr. Nolan?
Mr. Nolan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a couple of quick
questions here that I have. And we have got about--I am told as
many as 7 billion metric tons of waste rocks piled up all over
Minnesota's iron range, up in northeastern Minnesota. Exposed
rock. Much has potentially hazardous consequences as a result
of some of the sulfuric content, and its impact on the lakes
and the rivers and waters in the region.
So--and there are some companies now that are moving in,
and they are reprocessing a lot of that ore. The ore was so
rich back in the day that anything that had anything less than
40 percent iron content was just discarded.
My question of you is have you seen any new technologies
that we could potentially find some ways to incentivize to go
in and reprocess and clean up in the process and take greater
advantage of the mineral resources that remain in those
potentially toxic piles all over our range?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, I have heard about some emerging
technologies. I think it is probably--I would say right now
there are some efforts to do a pilot in the fields. I do think
that many of the researchers believe it is promising. So I
don't really have a comprehensive assessment, but I do know
that there is some research going on in this area.
Mr. Nolan. You know, we--I say ``we''; I wasn't here--but,
you know, the Bureau of Mines and Minerals was largely
abandoned. I have seen reports from the National Mining
Association, from the land grant universities, from a whole
variety of other sources that say we need to fund, you know, a
national research center to study and help facilitate the
development of new mining technologies and environmental
technologies associated with the mining and/or the cleanup. Do
you see where something like that would be an enhancement to,
you know, what we are trying to do here in the Good Samaritan,
you know, mining and development cleanup initiatives?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, yes. I am not sure of the connection
to the Good Samaritan. I think, clearly, the more and better
technology----
Mr. Nolan. You don't see the connection? What is the Good
Samaritan all about?
Mr. Stanislaus. I am sorry?
Mr. Nolan. You don't see a connection between the Good
Samaritan mining and cleanup activities----
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes, so----
Mr. Nolan [continuing]. And study and research on how to
mine and how to clean up in a way that is----
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes. I mean I think research and technology
is all good. And so I would say that, yes, that makes sense.
Mr. Nolan. OK.
Mr. Stanislaus. And the Good Samaritan projects are
relatively small projects to kind of stabilize sites.
Mr. Nolan. Yes.
Mr. Stanislaus. You know, so----
Mr. Nolan. Well, I mean, if we don't have $33 billion or
$72 billion, or whatever the number is--then we better be
looking at something. You know? And science often has a way of
leading us to progress. I am glad that you do see the
connection after reconsidering it. Thank you.
Mr. Gibbs. Mr. Stanislaus, we checked on your roster of
employees. You do not have any mining engineers listed. So you
say that you have personnel that have expertise in cleanup. You
know, cleaning up a spill compared to cleaning up some of the
other sites that aren't mining sites, you know, when I talk to
engineers, the complications and the details with the stuff
that goes into mining are a lot different than some of those
other cleanups. So, obviously, the EPA--I think, to be honest--
has to rely on the private sector expertise.
Now, then the question goes further. My first question
dealing with this Gold King Mine incident, that private
contractor--I don't know anything about them. Do they have
mining engineers? Or what was their expertise level?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, they had mining experience, but they
also brought in subcontractors with specific mining expertise.
Mr. Gibbs. Can you provide details for that?
Mr. Stanislaus. Sure.
Mr. Gibbs. Because I think that there is a big, big
question of competency on this whole issue out there in
Colorado.
To give you an example, in 2008 the Tennessee Valley
Authority had a major coal ash spill, and they brought in
numerous independent investigators from the private sector,
because they were fearful, they didn't want it to happen again,
because they have other coal ash facilities. And in this case,
the EPA, as you said, Department of the Interior is doing an
investigation, which I think is through the Bureau of
Reclamation. Is that correct?
Mr. Stanislaus. That is right.
Mr. Gibbs. What technical expertise does the Bureau of
Reclamation have in this with mines? Because I--go ahead.
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, that is probably best answered by
them, but the Bureau of Reclamation is very much involved in
mining situations. They are also, as I understand it, also
doing peer review with other experts.
Mr. Gibbs. OK, because I would--you know, a little bit of
research I did, the Bureau of Reclamation isn't really in the
mining business. They are more in the water infrastructure
business. Bureau of Land Management probably has a little bit
more expertise.
So I question, you know, why--and then why aren't--isn't
the EPA bringing--like the Tennessee Valley Authority, who
brought in independent, totally independent, not another
Government agency, to do a full-fledged investigation. I mean
you are not doing that, right?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, yes. I mean so there are two
additional investigations going on right now.
Mr. Gibbs. Who is doing them?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, Department of the Interior and the
Office of Inspector General.
Mr. Gibbs. Wait, what is that?
Mr. Stanislaus. The Office of Inspector General.
Mr. Gibbs. Oh, for the Department of--EPA, or----
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes.
Mr. Gibbs. But there is no--there is going to be no
contracted other private entities like the Tennessee Valley
Authority did?
Mr. Stanislaus. No.
Mr. Gibbs. OK. Yes, just to go back on the Bureau of
Reclamation issue, do they have a water quality lab? Do they do
any water quality research, laboratory studies or analysis?
Mr. Stanislaus. Again, this has been--the Bureau of
Reclamation and Department of the Interior is leading this
study, and----
Mr. Gibbs. Well, I guess I am questioning their expertise
to be the lead agency in that investigation, because I don't
believe that they have expertise in heavy metal migration,
water quality analysis capabilities, expertise in mine tunnels.
That is what we need to have, expertise--people who are really
experts in that, not self-declared experts.
So I think that is a question of what is going on,
because--I am going back to Mr. Rice's line of questioning. You
know, nobody has been held accountable. And you are saying,
well, the investigation goes on, and that is fair. But we have
thousands of these mine sites where we could have more
disasters, and we need to make sure it doesn't happen again.
And so the EPA should do all they can do to make sure that the
investigations are legit and carried out by people that are
credible.
And it is kind of like the fox and the henhouse regulating
themselves, you know. Obviously, the EPA was in partnership or
contract with this, and working hand in hand with this
contractor on this spill when they opened up the mine.
And we had leach issues coming out, but apparently nobody
knew what was behind that closure from the sediment rocks and
everything, and that is when it broke loose. And it didn't have
the right things in process to--like a catch basin or anything
to catch that. So they--is that clear, they were really caught
by surprise?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, yes. In the--our own internal review
that we have issued, it is clear that that risk was identified,
and also concluded that, if it was capable to be done, going
behind the mine to identify there was a pressurized situation
would have been ideal. But also it identifies that it was not--
given the sheer grade of the mine below that--the contract
actually did that, they were able to get behind the mine and
actually look at those pressurized conditions--confirm it was
not pressurized. In this situation they were not able to do
that.
And our internal review concluded that they are not sure it
was possible to prevent a blowout.
Mr. Gibbs. Your internal review, which are self-declared
experts, not the mining engineer experts.
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, again, our role is cleanup. We were
brought--the State of Colorado and stakeholders asked it to be
addressed because of this very risk. We were brought to this
situation because of the risk that stakeholders identified, the
risk of----
Mr. Gibbs. Well, I--OK, just----
Mr. Stanislaus [continuing]. A blowout. That is why we were
there----
Mr. Gibbs. This all--I think this all goes back to what we
are trying to do here with the Good Samaritan thing, you know.
People that really are--have experience and expertise working
to do that. And we need to get some protections, because
obviously, they are not stepping up.
And now, my question on the Good Samaritan concept, would
the EPA be supportive of partial--if you got a Good Samaritan
who wants to come in there, if we change the law to make it so
that it encourages them to do that, and they want to come in
and do a partial remediation, but maybe not a total
remediation, would--let's use an example.
Say you have a mine that is leaching, OK? And if they come
in and do a partial remediation it is going to take care of
that leaching process, but it might not take care of something
further in the mine that might be--50 years away it might be
another problem, but they just don't have the resources or
capability to do that. Would the EPA be supportive of partial
remediation?
Mr. Stanislaus. Oh, absolutely. I mean under our existing
guidance, partial cleanup is allowed, because, from our
perspective and the Good Samaritan perspective, reducing the
magnitude of risk is always a good thing.
Mr. Gibbs. OK. Well, I guess I used up my time. Go ahead.
Mrs. Napolitano. Well, along the same line, if the Good
Samaritan is going to come in for the purposes of being a Good
Samaritan, but if they are coming in to mine and leave a worse
mess, what safeguards are there to be able to preclude that
from happening?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, again, the Good Samaritan guidance is
intended to be for a pure Good Samaritan.
Mrs. Napolitano. Purely.
Mr. Stanislaus. So meaning someone who is going there to
address the risk from that site. If it is going to be mining,
then there has got to be a separate process to deal with the
mining situation and closure requirements and all of that. So
it has to be done separately, if I understand your question.
Mrs. Napolitano. Well, if we are going to allow the Good
Samaritan to have an opportunity to go in and clean up, how are
you going to build something separate to address anybody coming
in, another mining company wanting to come in to reopen the
mine, or be able to mine around the existing mine----
Mr. Stanislaus. So----
Mrs. Napolitano [continuing]. And create a problem for the
future of leaching or leaking or being able to contaminate some
of the streams and the rivers?
Mr. Stanislaus. So just in terms of the Good Samaritan
project itself, you would have an agreement and a workplan to
deal with--it could be consolidation, it could be
encapsulation. But if the entity were to separately do a mining
operation, that would not be covered, and the protections would
not be accorded for the mining activities.
Mrs. Napolitano. How would you define Good Samaritan, then,
somebody doing it out of their good will? Who is going to pay
for it? Where is the Good Samaritan getting the funding to be
able to go in and do that cleanup?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, a Good Samaritan--we identified
factors in our--they have to be someone who is not responsible
for that site, no affiliation with who was responsible for that
mining site. OK? Did that answer your question?
Mrs. Napolitano. Yes, but who is paying for that?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, the Good Samaritan would have to pay
for that. That is why it is a relatively small project, as
compared to some of the large projects that we have had, that
EPA has had to step in with hundreds of millions of dollars.
Mrs. Napolitano. Will this be defined in being able to
determine how a Good Samaritan should act in cleaning up?
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes. So the project would be defined, the
activities would be defined----
Mrs. Napolitano. Keeping it from making it worse is my
point.
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes. So the activities to lessen the risk
and to consolidate, that would be defined as part of the
agreement process.
Mrs. Napolitano. It would allow them to do mining?
Mr. Stanislaus. No.
Mrs. Napolitano. Just the cleanup?
Mr. Stanislaus. Just the cleanup.
Mrs. Napolitano. And that is going to be defined?
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes.
Mrs. Napolitano. OK. Well, are any of these companies
foreign-owned, that we can go back to their origin of being
able to be the PRPs [potentially responsible parties]?
Mr. Stanislaus. Oh, for the abandoned mines?
Mrs. Napolitano. Yes, sir.
Mr. Stanislaus. Again, when we get involved, we would first
look at responsible parties. But again, some of these mines
have been abandoned as much as 100 years ago. So, you know, it
is very likely that those entities are not around.
Mrs. Napolitano. Well, that is probably very true. Now
there are a couple of other questions I had, and it has to do--
and I think my colleague, the chairman, indicated about the
contractors and their qualification. Since you may not have all
the required mining engineers on staff, the contracts you have,
you ensure that they are individuals who can deal--who have
done it before, who will continue to be able to be responsible
and reliable.
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, that is exactly right. I mean EPA is
not doing mining activities. We are not engineering the conduct
of mining operations. What we are doing is doing cleanup. So we
clearly have expertise in cleanup, be it a mining site, or any
other chemical waste management site, we have that expertise.
Mrs. Napolitano. Yes. But the EPA is only the cleanup. But
isn't it also true that the Governor of the State should be
able to allow that specific mine to go on Superfund, to be able
to effectively put funding into it, taxpayer funds?
Mr. Stanislaus. I am not sure I fully understand your
question. I mean with respect to----
Mrs. Napolitano. This is not on Superfund list. The gold
mine was not on the Superfund list.
Mr. Stanislaus. That is right. There has been
conversations--it was not on the national priorities list for a
long-term cleanup. That is right, yes. And so there are ongoing
discussions with the Governor and the local stakeholders about
their perspectives on whether it should be listed or not.
Mrs. Napolitano. Well, we want to be sure--or at least I
would hope that we would try to protect the taxpayer from
having to end up cleaning up abandoned mines, when there might
be possibility of being able to find the potential responsible
parties, PRPs, and ensure that you have enough funding to be
able to carry out the cleanup, but with the cooperation of not
only the State and the mining interests.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Gibbs. Mr. Hardy?
Mr. Hardy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Gold King Mine, was
it private or was it a BLM----
Mr. Stanislaus. It is a private site.
Mr. Hardy. Are you aware that, in Nevada, that almost--
there's numbers of 85 percent of our State is federally owned?
Mr. Stanislaus. OK.
Mr. Hardy. That is a fact.
Mr. Stanislaus. OK.
Mr. Hardy. OK. With that being said, I am going to guess--I
am going to guess--that there's close to 95 percent of all the
mines are on federally owned ground. Little befuddling to me
that you don't know more about all this Federal ground in
Nevada.
The reason I go down this avenue, you talk about that you
have the expertise to be able to evaluate these cleanups. But
without the mining expertise that you folks require mines,
before they open, to have this mining engineer, this geological
engineer, this archeological engineer, every kind of engineer
under the--expert to be able to open that mine, who evaluates
that mine before it opens, then, and approves it, if you don't
have that expertise yourself?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, again, there--the agencies who are
responsible for that is not EPA. So we have lots of other
agencies in the Federal Government that has--that lead the
questions about opening of mines.
Mr. Hardy. Then shouldn't we maybe have those other
agencies involved in this new rule that we are trying to make
it safe for these folks to be able to have these projects
cleaned up, to make sure that they are doing the right thing
the right way, instead of EPA taking the lead on this?
Shouldn't that be some other direction?
Mr. Stanislaus. Oh, I don't disagree.
Mr. Hardy. Shouldn't the EPA let somebody else take the
lead on the Gold King Mine?
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes. I mean, from a cleanup perspective,
clearly, EPA has a role and just to clarify, EPA, working with
the State and the State's experts, approached it from a cleanup
perspective, and we brought to bear contractors with specific
mining expertise.
With respect to the broader question of opening and closing
mines, clearly there are other Federal agencies and State
expertise that should take the lead on those issues.
Mr. Hardy. OK. And I just want to make it very clear before
this committee and this panel here that the closing of a mine
doesn't necessarily have to do with always cleaning up
contaminants, because the majority of the mines in Nevada don't
have any contamination. The majority of the mines in Nevada and
other States in the West were--they are small tunnels, shafts.
And a closure of that mine might have to do with just a
concrete cap or a gate or a door, which--somebody over there
made the statement, but that is adequate for most mines. Mines
that have chemicals in them have a different process, and they
have to do that under the approval of the EPA before they can
even open of how their closure is going to go.
So why you are not following these issues kind of befuddles
me. Why we are not having more responsibility, especially in
the West, where 64 percent of all the West is held by the
Federal Government, in making sure that these cleanups happen
from the Superfund? And our own State, which--I sat on the
State legislature. We fund a certain amount of dollars every
year for the closure of mines, abandoned mines. So everybody
has a stake in this thing.
But it is frustrating to me that--just want to make sure
that, as we go down this road, that we make it safe, for those
people that want to try to help and do things, that we protect
them legally. And also that they understand the obligation of
what is going on so when--if they do have a challenge, that we
don't have another Gold King spill. So----
Mr. Stanislaus. Sure. I mean I would agree for Good
Samaritans to move forward we absolutely want to make sure that
we address their liability concerns. So----
Mr. Hardy. And the Good Samaritans are probably some of our
greatest assets out there. Well, let's let them do the work
that they want to do, and help them do it the right way.
Mr. Stanislaus. But I think, as you noted, the magnitude of
the issue is pretty large. I think States have a fairly
significant role, both in abandoned and new mines, and the
Federal Government, so it is a comprehensive situation with the
Good Samaritans playing a role as part of that.
Mr. Hardy. I guess the direction I would like to go back to
with the situation in Nevada, it doesn't seem to appear you
know much about Nevada, but wouldn't that evaluation of each
State be more empowering to that State to understand--because
Nevada has some of the same processes to protect--leave that
power in the State of Nevada rather than one over--one eye,
single eye, looking over the whole Nation, so to speak?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, absolutely. I mean I think that
cleanup has to be led by the States. And not only the cleanup,
but the management of it, which is the case. EPA is brought on
board in situations from a complexity and cost perspective, as
it was in this situation.
Mr. Hardy. And they should be compensated for that
management, especially when it is Federal lands.
Mr. Gibbs. I want to follow up a little bit. I think I just
heard you advocating for States to lead in this effort to clean
up these abandoned mines.
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, I think cleanup, generally, I mean,
the States have a very----
Mr. Gibbs. Yes. Let me ask you this question. Acid mine
drainage and all that, which is part of the abandoned mine
issue, is there a U.S. EPA site where they have actually been
successful in cleaning up an abandoned mine site, or has it
most primarily been States doing it?
Mr. Stanislaus. Well, I would say it is always--I mean
sites like this and other sites, there is always a partnership
with the States. And I can get back to you in terms of specific
situations.
Mr. Gibbs. Yes. Also, get back to us with a detailed
explanation of what experts are utilized in-house and
contracted on these abandoned mine cleanups, so we can get our
arms around what is really going on.
Just a final question. Would you give us recommendations of
what should be done? Because we had this discussion earlier
about the administrative tools. Obviously--I don't know if you
concur with me, but the effectiveness isn't all that great,
because only one Good Samaritan has actually stepped up, and
they actually had to pull back, from my understanding. But what
recommendations could you give us that we could do through
legislation and otherwise to encourage volunteers, Good
Samaritans to step up? Because I think there is a lot of
willingness out there to do it. But what would be your
recommendations? And maybe you might have to get back to us
with that, but----
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes, let me get back to you specifically.
But this reminds me of a parallel situation, the contaminated
sites generally in the brownfield area. You know? So while EPA
provides some initial liability clarification, both the
financial sector and the development sector needed additional
outreach and comfort to enable underwriting processes to move
forward.
So we did a lot of outreach to make sure that people
understood that and actually did that. So I think maybe further
outreach. So I will get back to you more specifically on the
legal side.
Mr. Gibbs. OK.
Mr. Stanislaus. OK.
Mr. Gibbs. OK. Thank you. Thank you for coming in today,
and we will--I guess my ranking member has a quick question.
Mrs. Napolitano. Yes, just to kind of clarify the
gentleman's--Nevada has dry weather, so they have a very
different mine situation as we do in California and other
States.
And I certainly would want to ensure that the Good
Samaritan is something that can move forward, because it is a
necessity.
But we also need to know what kind of contamination some of
these mines might have, because I can bring up Moab, Utah. It
still needs about another billion dollars' worth of cleanup,
and it has been on the cleaning page now for, I don't know, a
couple decades. And it was leaching contaminations into the
Colorado River, which, downstream, the rest of us drink. And
how--what kind of contamination there might be, other than the
contaminants of lead and silver and other things, whether it
is--the severity of it.
And those are the things that we might want to hear, this
panel to understand, in what areas we might start looking at
prioritizing and be able to ensure that there's enough funds to
be able to start looking at future blowouts. Does it make
sense?
Mr. Stanislaus. Yes.
Mrs. Napolitano. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Gibbs. Thank you for coming in, Mr. Stanislaus, and we
will just take a minute break here while the next panel gets
situated.
[Pause.]
Mr. Gibbs. Well, welcome, panel 2. Hopefully, some more
Members will show up. But thank you for sitting through the
first panel.
On panel 2 we have Mr. Cavazza. He is the director of the
Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation, Pennsylvania Department
of Environmental Protection. He is speaking on behalf of the
Interstate Mining Compact Commission and the National
Association of Abandoned Mine Land Programs.
We have Mr. Luke Russell. He is vice president of external
affairs, Hecla Mining Company, on behalf of the National Mining
Association.
Mr. Doug Young is senior policy director of Keystone Policy
Center.
Mr. Chris Wood, president and CEO of Trout Unlimited, and
Ms. Lauren Pagel, policy director of Earthworks; welcome.
And, Mr. Cavazza, go ahead. Welcome, and the floor is
yours.

TESTIMONY OF ERIC E. CAVAZZA, P.E., DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF
ABANDONED MINE RECLAMATION, PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION, ON BEHALF OF THE INTERSTATE MINING
COMPACT COMMISSION AND THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF ABANDONED
MINE LAND PROGRAMS; LUKE RUSSELL, VICE PRESIDENT OF EXTERNAL
AFFAIRS, HECLA MINING COMPANY, ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL MINING
ASSOCIATION; DOUG YOUNG, SENIOR POLICY DIRECTOR, KEYSTONE
POLICY CENTER; CHRIS WOOD, PRESIDENT AND CEO, TROUT UNLIMITED;
AND LAUREN PAGEL, POLICY DIRECTOR, EARTHWORKS

Mr. Cavazza. OK. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. My name is
Eric Cavazza, and I am the director of Pennsylvania's abandoned
mine land program, and I am the outgoing president of the
National Association of Abandoned Mine Land Programs. I am
appearing here today on behalf of the Association and the
Interstate Mining Compact Commission. We appreciate the
opportunity to address the important issue of abandoned mine
lands and the potential for a Good Samaritan program.
There are a myriad of reasons why a Federal Good Samaritan
program is needed, but the most important is to remove the
potential for incurring liability under Federal environmental
protection statutes, such as the Clean Water Act. These
liabilities deter motivated, well-intentioned volunteers from
undertaking projects to clean up or improve abandoned sites,
thereby prolonging the harm to the environment and to the
health and welfare of our citizens. The universe of abandoned
mine lands is so large, and the existing governmental resources
so limited that, without the assistance of Good Samaritan
volunteers, it will be impossible to clean up all of these
lands.
We commend you and your colleagues for continuing efforts
in pursing Good Samaritan protections. Despite the
extraordinary dedication of those involved in the AML arena,
there remains a substantial amount of work to be done. This is
not due to a lack of will, but primarily to insufficient
funding. Our efforts need a substantial boost, and the
potential Good Samaritan solution before the subcommittee today
will propel us toward our goal.
We have seen the remarkable results from the Good Samaritan
approach in States such as mine, which enacted its own Good
Samaritan law to provide protections and immunities related to
State clean water requirements. Over 50 Good Samaritan projects
have been completed to date, and participants have included
local governments, individuals, watershed associations,
corporations, municipal authorities, and conservancies.
I would now like to discuss two specific examples of water
treatment projects in Pennsylvania, one of which was successful
and another that was never implemented as a result of liability
concerns.
Over the last 15 years, many partners worked to restore
water quality and reclaim abandoned mine lands in the Indian
Creek watershed in southwestern Pennsylvania. Indian Creek is
an important tributary which eventually flows into the Ohio
River in downtown Pittsburgh. An assessment of the watershed
revealed that drainage from abandoned mines was the biggest
source of impairment, degrading the quality of 17.4 miles of
Indian Creek and its tributaries. A watershed restoration plan
was developed to address the most severe discharges and restore
water quality.
Since that time, six passive mine drainage treatment
systems have been constructed, some on private property. The
private landowners and the watershed association were both
extremely concerned about liability. The parties applied for
and received approval for Pennsylvania Good Samaritan
protections. Without this protection, this project would likely
never have been completed. As a result of remediation work, the
stream has made a dramatic recovery, and now supports a healthy
fish community and is a source of community pride.
The Gladden discharge was a similar story with a different
outcome. The discharge dumps an average of about 900 gallons
per minute of iron-laden water into Millers Run, a tributary to
Chartiers Creek and the Ohio River. Within one-half mile,
Millers Run changes from a clear stream with trout to an orange
stream with virtually no life. Two local conservation groups
worked with the Pennsylvania AML program and several other
Government agencies, private landowners, and businesses for
over a decade to develop and implement a plan to treat the
Gladden discharge and restore Lower Chartiers Creek.
In 2009 a private business approached the group with a
concept to construct a treatment facility for the discharge,
and to establish a long-term O&M [operation and maintenance]
trust fund for the facility in exchange for the right to use
some of the treated water. Both the private landowner and the
private business were happy to learn of our environmental Good
Samaritan Act and the protections it afforded, but were
disappointed to learn that no equivalent such law existed to
protect them from third-party lawsuits and liability under the
Federal Clean Water Act.
After further review, both the private landowner and the
private business withdrew from the project. No subsequent
treatment plan has been implemented for the discharge, and it
continues to spew AMD [acid mine drainage] into the stream
today.
Over the course of the past 15 years, several bills have
been introduced in the U.S. Congress to enhance the cleanup of
inactive and abandoned mines by emulating the Pennsylvania Good
Samaritan program. From the State's perspective we have several
recommendations that we believe should be considered in any
Good Samaritan legislative effort, and these recommendations
are discussed in our written statement.
Mr. Chairman, the legacy of abandoned mine lands still
looms large in many of our Nation's communities. It is time for
Congress to act to enable Good Samaritans to help conquer the
monumental task of cleaning up our abandoned mine lands. Thank
you for the opportunity to testify.
Mr. Gibbs. Now, Mr. Russell, welcome. The floor is yours.
Mr. Russell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member. My
name is Luke Russell. I am vice president of external affairs
with Hecla Mining Company. I have been involved in
environmental compliance, reclamation, and remediation of mine
sites for over 30 years, including time worked as remediation
manager with the State of Idaho at the Coeur d'Alene Basin
Superfund site in northern Idaho.
Hecla Mining Company is the oldest precious metals mining
company in North America, and the United States largest primary
silver producer. Today I am testifying on behalf of the
National Mining Association, who represents the miners,
vendors, and suppliers of America's mining industry. National
Mining and its member companies have long been interested in
promoting the voluntary cleanup of legacy mines through the
development of Good Samaritan legislation.
When we speak about abandoned mines, it is important to
note that we are talking about sites with no viable owner that
were created due to mining practices of 100 to 150 years ago,
well before the enactment of modern environmental laws,
regulations, and reclamation requirements. We are not talking
about mines of today.
Today's operators must provide financial assurance to
guarantee their sites will be properly reclaimed, and billions
of dollars have been posted with the State and Federal
Governments for exactly this purpose. Thus, the abandoned mine
land problem is a finite and historical problem, not one that
will grow in the future.
Industry wants to see legacy sites reclaimed, and safety
and environmental conditions improved as much as anyone. After
all, they are incorrectly portrayed as being our dirty
pictures, when, in fact, they represent results of historic
practices. The mining industry has the desire, the experience,
the equipment, and the technology to mitigate and reclaim
abandoned mine lands.
Any Good Samaritan faces the risk of perpetual liability
under provisions of the Clean Water Act and the Comprehensive
Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, or
CERCLA. For example, under the Clean Water Act, a Good
Samaritan that affects a discharge, even if working to improve
site conditions, becomes fully responsible in perpetuity, even
if they had no role in creating the conditions that originally
caused the adverse water quality. Consequently, remediation
measures that could result in incremental and, in some cases,
significant water quality improvements are not undertaken for
fear of the resulting liability.
Furthermore, a Good Samaritan who begins to clean up, or
even just investigates an abandoned mine site, runs the risk of
becoming an operator under CERCLA. CERCLA liability is joint,
several, strict, and retroactive. Such potential liability is
chilling to any voluntary cleanup effort.
If a goal of Good Samaritan legislation is to improve water
quality, the environment, and public safety, then such
legislation must encourage cleanups by reducing the legal
impediments. To remove the legal barriers discussed previously,
regulators should be given discretion to adjust environmental
requirements, standards, and liabilities for Good Samaritan
projects. Mining companies should be allowed to qualify as Good
Samaritans. Mining companies that did not create the identified
environmental problems at a legacy site should be allowed to
qualify.
EPA or States must permit Good Samaritan projects. Projects
should be authorized on a site-by-site basis, with discretion
to allow important environmental improvements that may fall
short of addressing all contaminants at a site, so long as they
are--a net improvement is achieved.
Good Samaritan legislation should also allow remedial
actions that include the reuse or reprocessing of materials
from legacy sites. At some abandoned mine sites the best way to
partially or wholly remediate the environment may be to collect
the various materials located at the site, utilize them in
construction of a new mining operation, or process those
materials to remove any valuable minerals, and then to dispose
of those wastes in an environmentally sound manner. Such
projects would be subject to appropriate Federal or State
assessment and approval through a Good Samaritan permit
program.
Protecting the public interest and ensuring more effective
and efficient cleanup of legacy sites created in the distant
past is possible, and should include Good Samaritan legislation
that embodies the elements discussed above. The mining industry
stands ready to be a part of this solution.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify here today.
Mr. Gibbs. Thank you.
Mr. Young, welcome, the floor is yours.
Mr. Young. Mr. Chairman, Representative Napolitano, thank
you very much for inviting me here to be at this panel, and
also for actually holding this discussion. My name is Doug
Young. I am a senior policy director at the Keystone Policy
Center that is headquartered in Keystone, Colorado.
And my name is Young, but I am not young to this topic. I
actually have been working on this particular specific topic
for 20 years. I started out working on it in the Western
Governors' Association as staff counsel for Governor Roy Romer,
then worked for 12 years with then-Representative--and later
Senator--Mark Udall on this very topic. So I was the lead
staffer for him on the various pieces of legislation that he
had introduced on this very topic.
And this is a mixed blessing for me because it is
unfortunate that we are still talking about it, and it is
unfortunate that a spill like the Gold King spill precipitates
a need for this discussion. But I am glad it is happening, and
I am glad we are continuing to have the conversation. The
unfortunate part about it is that I wish we had fixed this a
long time ago.
To give you a little flavor of the difficulty--you have
heard some of it here today, your questions have been very,
very good, because they have hit on the topics that we have
been experiencing on this particular issue over the 20 years I
have worked on it.
In my experience, we gathered together various disparate
interests, just the whole range of folks who are interested in
solving this over the 20-year period that I worked on specific
legislation. And we all wrestled with the very topics that you
have raised and that have been raised in this very hearing.
We brought together the States, the EPA, the mining
industry, the environmental community, anybody who would have
an interest in this. And we haggled over all of the topics you
have raised. And the focus that we did at the time was over the
Clean Water Act, specifically. The efforts back then were to
try to come up with a new permit, a brand-new permit program
under EPA so that--or, excuse me, under the Clean Water Act, so
that it would deal with the discharging issues.
I should tell you that there are plenty of Good Samaritans.
You have heard today that the people are actually doing work at
these sites. What hampers them is the discharge problem. So
they are doing good work and resolving safety issues, other
kinds of issues that exist at these sites, but it is the
draining, ongoing, perpetual, forever releases that are
hampering, the big stumbling block, which is why we focused on
the Clean Water Act liability question.
I will quickly say that the--and we--the problem is we
couldn't get--we got consensus on some of these topics and we
wrestled with the remaining question, the standards to apply,
who could be a Good Samaritan, how to deal with sites on
Federal property versus non-Federal property, how to include
the tribes. We dealt with all of that. So--but the trouble is
we tried to thread the needle on getting consensus on that, but
we never got complete agreement, where everybody would come to
the table in front of a hearing, like in front of all of you,
and say, ``We support this program.''
So I worry that we are going to go back over old ground in
using the Clean Water Act as the mechanism. I personally
believe that we now are at a place where we can look at this
anew, and look at other programs that we could tack on to or
make some refinements to, instead of the Clean Water Act, being
specifically CERCLA as a potential, brownfields as a potential.
And what you can do, I think, is that you can make
amendments to those statutes, where you capture the concern of
all of the issues, but specifically related to discharging
releases, and not have to go back over the old ground of coming
up with a whole new permit program within the Clean Water Act.
That still is a potential avenue, I think, so I don't want to
discount that. But we are going to end up having to go
through--we will still go through those same issues and still
try to refine them and get consensus around them.
But the big concern I have is that the Clean Water Act is a
very special act, it is a very important one, and I know there
are concerns from some folks about opening it up. And I believe
that you can deal with the discharge issue, the ongoing
discharge issue, without having to actually amend the Clean
Water Act, and do it through other authorities, like CERCLA.
So I just--I am just saying that I think we ought to be
able to use this opportunity to get at the very issues you have
raised--I am not suggesting those same issues don't need to be
wrestled with again, they do. But there might be a way we can
address some of the other issues that have stymied this through
other mechanisms, so we do not end up facing those roadblocks
again under this new thinking, and try again.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gibbs. Thank you. Mr. Wood, welcome.
Mr. Wood. Chairman Gibbs, Ranking Member Napolitano, thank
you for having me here today. My name is Chris Wood, and I am
the president and CEO of Trout Unlimited. I want to offer the
following testimony on behalf of TU and our 155,000 members.
And my testimony will focus on the cleanup of abandoned mine
lands, specifically the need to facilitate more abandoned mine
cleanups by Good Samaritans--namely, those who don't have a
legal obligation to take on such work, but do it just to
improve water quality.
Our mission is to conserve, protect, and restore North
America's coldwater fisheries and the watersheds that they
depend on. In pursuit of that mission, we have worked to
restore streams and rivers that have been damaged by abandoned
mines from the coal fields of Appalachia to the Rocky Mountain
West, and many places in between.
If you could, move the first slide.
[Slide]
Mr. Wood. By now, this image is familiar to everyone. The
3-million-gallon spill in August of polluted water from the
Gold King Mine near Silverton drew national media attention.
The next slide, please.
[Slide]
Mr. Wood. But less well-known is the fact that there are
thousands of similar, smaller scale abandoned mines that flow
through people's backyards all around--all across America. The
lesson from Gold King is not so much that an EPA contractor
screwed up, as it is that we need to have a much greater sense
of urgency about addressing the problem of pollution from
abandoned mines all over the Nation.
Abandoned hardrock mines affect about 40 percent of the
headwater streams in the Western United States. This is
particularly important for us, because that happens to be where
all the native trout are holed up. The lack of a dedicated
funding source, and the burdensome liability risk for would-be
Good Samaritans stalls efforts to clean up these abandoned
mines.
In the East we have pollution from abandoned coal mines
that damages over 10,000 miles of streams in Pennsylvania and
West Virginia alone. The East, however, should actually
consider itself fortunate, because the production of coal is
taxed in this country, and part of that funding supports an
abandoned mine land fund. Since 1977, more than $8 billion has
been put to good use on the ground, cleaning up abandoned coal
mines and making them safer in Appalachia. Unfortunately, no
similar fund exists to clean up the legacy of hardrock mining,
particularly in the Western United States.
In Pennsylvania, as was mentioned earlier, aided by a
State-based Good Samaritan policy, TU is working with State
agencies, watershed groups, and other partners to conduct more
than 250 abandoned coal mine pollution abatement projects.
If you could show slide 3, please.
[Slide]
Mr. Wood. In places such as Kerber Creek, Colorado,
pictured here, TU and its partners have restored over 80 acres
of mine tailings, improved 8 miles of stream, and installed
over 340 in-stream structures that are now home to naturally
reproducing wild trout. Volunteers logged over 13,000 hours of
work in the watershed over the past few years alone, and the
project has received awards from the BLM, the State of
Colorado, the Forest Service, and the Public Lands Foundation.
Notwithstanding what happened at Gold King, we know how to
clean up abandoned mines in the East and the West. Two things
would dramatically accelerate the scope and scale of our
efforts to make our water cleaner and our rivers more fishable
and swimmable.
First, as is the case with coal, a dedicated funding source
is needed for cleaning up abandoned hardrock mines. Almost
every commodity developed off public lands--coal, wood fiber,
oil, gas, and forage--all have dedicated funding for
restoration and mitigation. The only commodity that lacks such
a dedicated fund is hardrock minerals. That needs to change.
Second, local communities, private interests, and groups
such as TU need protection from the liability associated with
cleaning up abandoned mines. The Clean Water Act and CERCLA
have been tremendously effective at cleaning up our rivers and
holding polluters accountable for their actions. They do not,
however, lend themselves to permitting cleaning up abandoned
mines. My written testimony provides recommendations for
tailored changes that we think would fix the problem.
We strongly urge you to work together to introduce and
develop a strong bipartisan bill to help us clean up abandoned
mines, and we stand ready to work with Congress to get such a
bill through Congress, so that affected communities around the
country will once again have clean and fishable waters.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
Mr. Gibbs. Thank you. Mr. Pagel, welcome.
Ms. Pagel. Thank you, Chairman Gibbs, Ranking Member
Napolitano, and members of the subcommittee, for the
opportunity to speak to you today about reclaiming abandoned
hardrock mines and Good Samaritan policies. My name is Lauren
Pagel, I am the policy director for Earthworks.
For over a quarter century, Earthworks has worked closely
with a broad coalition of local governments, Native Americans,
citizens groups, and other conservation organizations to
improve the policies governing hardrock mining, including
abandoned mine reclamation. As the orange rivers in Colorado--
both from the Gold King Mine spill and the recent acid mine
drainage into the Uncompahgre River illustrate, we have a
problem with pollution from inactive and old hardrock mines in
this country. This pollution harms Western waters and the
communities that rely on them for recreation, tourism, and
drinking water.
These orange rivers are stark reminders, but do not
adequately represent the hundreds of thousands of abandoned
mines that litter the West, polluting water in more subtle yet
no less destructive ways. We have the solution to the problem
of perpetual pollution from inactive and abandoned hardrock
mines. We must reform the 1872 mining law and institute a
reclamation fee similar to the one paid by the coal industry in
order to stop the next mine disaster before it happens. If the
hardrock mining industry had been subject to a reclamation fee,
the Gold King Mine spill likely would never have happened.
Good Samaritan initiatives that don't include a dedicated
and significant funding source won't solve the problem facing
Western communities and water resources. The EPA has created a
process, which you heard about earlier, through which qualified
projects can receive what is effectively a Good Samaritan
permit. Applicants receive an administrative order from the EPA
to become Good Samaritans and earn liability relief from CERCLA
and the Clean Water Act.
Earthworks supports this process, and we have supported
several legislative proposals in past Congresses that create a
narrow exemption from the Clean Water Act for truly Good
Samaritans.
The pollution from many abandoned mines persists despite
well-intentioned efforts by Good Samaritans to clean up these
mines, and the reason is lack of funding. There are many other
ticking time bombs like the Gold King Mine, messy, complicated,
incredibly expensive to clean up, that cannot be solved by Good
Samaritans alone. According to the EPA, estimated cleanup costs
for abandoned hardrock mines totals approximately $50 billion.
This is a large-scale problem, and it requires a large-scale
solution, which comes in the form of a reclamation fee.
Cleaning up abandoned mines can be a win-win for our
economy and for clean water. According to data from the State
of Montana Abandoned Mine Reclamation Fund, each million
dollars spent on cleanup creates 81 jobs. In addition to job
creation, these restoration activities put degraded lands into
productive use and grant relief to communities that are
currently shackled with excessive costs for water treatment.
The Obama administration has proposed a reclamation fee on
all hardrock mining, similar to what the coal mining industry
pays. This fee would generate an estimated $180 million per
year to fund abandoned mine reclamation, and that would create
an estimated 14,000 jobs for those in the mining industry.
Congressmen DeFazio, Grijalva, Lowenthal, and others have
introduced legislation that would bring us closer to ensuring
that the Gold King Mine disaster does not happen again. H.R.
963, the Hardrock Mining Reform and Reclamation Act, would
facilitate the cleanup of abandoned hardrock mines, while
creating tens of thousands of reclamation jobs across the West,
far into the future. This bill modernizes the antiquated 1872
mining law by balancing mining with other uses of public lands,
while ensuring a fair royalty to the taxpayer and creating a
reclamation fee.
Thank you for the opportunity to present the views of
Earthworks on this important topic, and we look forward to
working with the committee to address the real problem of
abandoned mines--that abandoned mines pose to water and public
safety in the West.
Mr. Gibbs. Thank you. I will start out. Mr. Russell, thanks
for all of your testimony, it is all great and helpful. But,
Mr. Russell, you talk about mining companies needing to qualify
for Good Samaritan works, OK? And I would agree with that,
because that is where the expertise is, and I think we had
discussion on the first panel about questioning the expertise
of that panel.
I guess my first question is what issues are you facing
that you haven't been able to qualify? And then also, would
remining an abandoned site--is that an issue? Because we are
talking about how we need more resources.
Now, it seems to me one of the ways that we get resources,
if some of these abandoned mines can be reopened when they are
reclaimed and--or maybe areas in the mine can be remined. You
are the expert, you would have to tell me. But I will just give
you an example. I know in the oil and gas fields, you know, we
have got wells that were put in in the 1920s and 1930s and now
we have seen--until the price dropped, anyways--coming back in
with a new technology, they can strip those walls and get oil
and gas they couldn't get, you know, 50, 60 years ago. It is
the technology.
So with improved technology, remining efforts, is this one
way to go? And if so, what are the regulatory challenges to be
able to get there? As you say, mining companies need to be
qualified.
Mr. Russell. Certainly, Mr. Chairman. Let me give you an
example. I worked at a mine that--it was first mined in the
late 1860s, the competing mining camps were called Leesburg and
Grantsville on the heels of the U.S. Civil War. One hundred
years later, I was there permitting a new mine, new technology,
able to come back into that same area and mine again.
The historic mining had left placer sediments in the
downstream area. As a part of the modern mine, we were able to
come in, clean that material up, use some of that material as
part of the construction, so it was a win-win for the
environment, a win for us. So we did not reprocess that
material, but we were able to utilize it as construction
material.
So, yes, there is great opportunity. And, as testified
earlier, that under a Good Samaritan program there would be a
bright line between what would be that type of remediation and
cleanup and what would be a renewed mining operation. That
renewed mining operation would be subject to all State and
Federal permitting. It would be required to post a financial
assurance, which would be different than that first piece,
which could be remediation----
Mr. Gibbs. Now, are you seeing roadblocks put up by the
regulatory agencies to do that? What have your challenges been?
Mr. Russell. Sir, the biggest challenge was mentioned
earlier. If there is a discharge, the wheels fall off. The
liability, potential liability of having to be responsible for
that in perpetuity essentially is a chilling----
Mr. Gibbs. So, essentially, you are buying the liability
that was from 100 years ago.
Mr. Russell. Exactly right.
Mr. Gibbs. And so they call that a tail. You know, it goes
on forever.
Mr. Russell. It is a long tail.
Mr. Gibbs. A long tail. OK. Mr. Young, you talked about not
doing this through the CWA [Clean Water Act], but maybe
brownfields or Superfund. Can you just expound on it a little
bit more?
Mr. Young. Sure, most certainly. I was going to just make a
real quick observation on remining, if it is OK.
Mr. Gibbs. Yes.
Mr. Young. We did deal with this quite a bit, historically,
including in previous legislation that would use the Clean
Water Act permit. One way we worked this through was that any
remining that occurred--I mean the effort has to be to clean up
the site. So it is not--the purpose of remining would not be to
actually remine and develop the resource. The purpose would be
to do the cleanup. And, as you are doing that cleanup, if you
run across recoverable assets, minerals, you can develop those.
But the way we did it was that any of the revenue that you
received for that mineral, recovered mineral, would have to be
plowed back into the site itself you are cleaning up, or future
abandoned mine sites. So that was--I just throw that out there
as a solution, as a potential thing to look at, because that is
the way we dealt with that.
I will say, though, again, that I think I am a little
concerned that if we go back to the Clean Water Act and try to
establish a new permit program, we are going to go through
these same debates and issues again. That, again, can be a good
or bad thing. But it----
Mr. Gibbs. Well, let me just----
Mr. Young. Go ahead.
Mr. Gibbs. That takes us back to, I think, what Mr.
Stanislaus was talking about. They did this administrative
stuff in, I think, 2007 and 2012, and I was arguing--trying to
debate--about that. It must not be effective, because only one
entity took it up, and I don't think they were successful.
So you know, I guess the question is whether the
administrative action the U.S. EPA has taken is or is not
working. You would concur with that, right?
Mr. Young. I would agree. I will, though--I will applaud
the EPA for doing that. I think it is primarily, from my
perspective, focused on the CERCLA aspects of cleaning it up.
There is already a CERCLA Good Samaritan provision under the
CERCLA statute.
The question becomes when you have got a release after a
CERCLA removal action is complete, and you have got an ongoing
release. You are still subject to citizen lawsuit provisions.
In other words, there still has to be some statutory fixes that
would give legal assurances, real assurances, to Good
Samaritans.
Again, I think the EPA program is great. But if I were an
attorney advising a Good Samaritan under that EPA
administrative program, I would tell them you are still----
Mr. Gibbs. Because it doesn't protect you from third-party
lawsuits.
Mr. Young. Correct.
Mr. Gibbs. So that is a big issue.
Mr. Young. Correct.
Mr. Gibbs. Mr. Cavazza, I know Pennsylvania has done really
well in cleaning up and really, I guess, has a Good Samaritan
law, State law. Correct? I guess it has been successful. But,
you know, what is the conflict with Federal law? I mean, when
an entity is coming in to do a cleanup, they get protection
under State law for State lawsuits or third-party lawsuits, but
they have no protection if it is taken to a Federal court. What
have been the issues there for you?
Mr. Cavazza. Yes. You are correct. The Pennsylvania Good
Samaritan Environmental Good Samaritan Act protects Good
Samaritans, people cleaning up these sites, from all State and
clean water liability. However, there is no protection under
the Federal laws, primarily the Clean Water Act and also
potentially under CERCLA. And, in my time in Pennsylvania, we
have worked with a lot of partners on projects that I think
would have had significant improvement in cleaning up abandoned
mine sites and abandoned mine drainage. However, that fear of
that Federal liability has caused some of the partners to walk
away from the project.
Mr. Gibbs. So it is very challenging. OK. I will turn it
over to----
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On a yes or no
answer, please, because I have other questions I would like to
get to the panel, one of the lessons learned from the Gold King
Mine is that, despite the best intentions of the parties,
cleanup attempts can fail, and can have significant
consequences to downstream communities. However, I understand
the Good Samaritan concept.
The costs of such failure at a Good Samaritan site are not
all borne by the Good Samaritan, but are passed along to
others, including the taxpayers. If we ultimately really want
to solve the problem of abandoned hardrock mines, would you
agree that concepts of these Good Samaritan cleanups and a
dedicated fund for hardrock mine cleanup are inseparably bound
together? Yes or no. Panel?
Mr. Russell. Yes.
Mrs. Napolitano. Yes.
Mr. Cavazza. My microphone is not working. Yes. I would say
yes.
Mrs. Napolitano. Yes, OK.
Mr. Young. Yes.
Mr. Wood. Yes.
Ms. Pagel. Yes.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you. And to Mr. Cavazza, does the
National Association of Abandoned Mine Land Programs or the
States have an inventory of abandoned mine sites? And who do
they share it with? And what does the information contain?
Mr. Cavazza. Well, there is a--there are inventories,
partial inventories of hardrock sites. They are not maintained
by the National Association of Abandoned Mine Land Programs.
They are maintained by individual States and some of the
Federal agencies that--Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest
Service, National Park Service, they have partial inventories.
The Federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and
Enforcement, who administers all the abandoned mine land
programs for coal across the country, does maintain a national
inventory of abandoned coal sites. It is known as AMLIS,
Abandoned Mine Land Inventory System. It is--just like the
hardrock inventories, it is not 100 percent complete and
comprehensive. It does not identify every mine--coal mine site
and the problems associated with them across the country.
However, most of the highest priority sites have been
captured there. And I think the State inventories of hardrock
sites, along with the Federal agency hardrock inventories, have
identified a significant number of high-priority sites. And
probably the effort to try to make the inventories 100 percent
complete and comprehensive may not be worth the cost and effort
to do so because the magnitude of the problem is so great, and
the number of sites we have already identified that are of
priority is already very large, that any money that we would be
able to allocate toward the problem would probably best be
spent on the high-priority sites we have already identified.
Mrs. Napolitano. Are you saying that all the high-
priority--that every one of them that should be looked at is a
high priority? In other words you have identified the high
priority. The ones that you have not identified would not
qualify to be prioritized?
Mr. Cavazza. No, I do think some of the mine sites that are
not included on any of the inventories, whether they be coal or
hardrock, would be high-priority sites. But I think that would
be a minority of the unidentified sites. I think most of the
high-priority sites have been identified and are already on an
inventory. There just is not a comprehensive national inventory
of those sites.
Mrs. Napolitano. And why is that?
Mr. Cavazza. I think there are a number of factors. I think
the cost and difficulty of creating such an inventory has been
a deterrent to having that be completed. Many of these sites
are very remote. Many of them were mined several hundred years
ago, so there aren't very good records to even locate them. It
takes a lot of field reconnaissance or some type of remote
sensing to find these sites.
And then, the problems associated with them are--can be
very diverse. There can be mine subsidence issues, water
problems, and those are all very difficult to quantify and put
a cost to.
Mrs. Napolitano. Well, I would hope that maybe the
Conference of Mayors or other organizations would start looking
at what is in the backyard in order to prevent any kind of
impact they might have on their environment and on their
fishing and other tourism--tourist impacts.
Mr. Wood, your testimony suggests that you believe Good
Samaritan protections should only be extended to Good
Samaritans, not companies or communities.
Mr. Wood. I am sorry, did you say do I believe that?
Mrs. Napolitano. Yes. Why?
Mr. Wood. I----
Mrs. Napolitano. It suggests that you believe that it only
be extended to them. Why?
Mr. Wood. I don't believe that. I think Good Samaritan
protections should apply to anyone that doesn't have a historic
legal interest in the pollution. So we work very close--mining
companies are some of the best restoration practitioners out
there when it comes to cleaning up abandoned mines. And so long
as they don't have an historic legal connection to the
abandoned mine site, I think we should be encouraging them to
get involved.
Mrs. Napolitano. But who would make that determination?
Mr. Wood. Who would make the----
Mrs. Napolitano. That there is no inherent conflict.
Mr. Wood. Well, I mean, it should be fairly easy to
determine if an abandoned mine was at one point owned by the
company that is--now owns it.
Mrs. Napolitano. OK. One of the concerns I might have is
whether or not some of the folks who might want to remine a
mine--not necessarily the one who originally mined it--that
they may be doing it for profit and leave a worse situation
than was there before.
Mr. Wood. No, but I think Mr. Russell put it well. I mean,
you know, there is going to be areas where you can remine for
the sake of processing materials. They should go through the
full Federal permitting process for that kind of a project. But
for other areas, where they are truly acting as a Good
Samaritan--meaning that there is a neighboring property that
they don't even own that they can do some good work on and help
make things better--by all means I think we should encourage
that.
Mrs. Napolitano. But asking Good Samaritans to clean up the
old mines either through administrative process or via
legislation will not--and cannot--fully address the hundreds of
thousands of old mines that currently threaten our safety and
clean water. Why?
Mr. Wood. I am sorry. Say that one more time.
Mrs. Napolitano. Well, Ms. Pagel, this is for Ms.--this is
asking the Good Samaritans to clean up old mines. It will not
fully address the hundreds of thousands of mines that are
currently threatening our waters and our safety.
Ms. Pagel. Yes, Good Samaritans have a role to play in
cleaning up abandoned mines. But without an adequate funding
source, you are only going to have a small number of mines that
are cleaned up. And so, if we really want to address the full
scope of the problem, we need a dedicated funding source, we
need a hardrock abandoned mine reclamation program that can be
used by States, local governments, et cetera, to clean up those
sites.
Mrs. Napolitano. Would this dedicated fund be able to help
move the programs forward faster?
Ms. Pagel. Yes.
Mrs. Napolitano. Include more?
Ms. Pagel. Yes.
Mrs. Napolitano. And where would that funding come from?
Ms. Pagel. The funding would come from a reclamation fee
charged on the hardrock mining industry, similar to what the
coal mining industry has paid since the late 1970s.
Mrs. Napolitano. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gibbs. Mr. Rokita?
Mr. Rokita. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you
organizing us this morning, and I appreciate the witnesses'
testimony so far. My apologies for being late. I was,
ironically, at another hearing discussing coal mines, et
cetera. So I appreciate everyone's leadership in their field.
Ms.--is it Pagel or Pagel, I am sorry.
Ms. Pagel. Pagel.
Mr. Rokita. Pagel. Thank you. So I understand--and I will
probably have to zoom out a little bit from the detail that you
are probably used to, but would Good Samaritan projects improve
the environment or not? Should we encourage Good Samaritans to
perform cleanups at mine sites?
Ms. Pagel. We should. And I would hope we could also get
Good Samaritans additional funding from a reclamation fund to
do those cleanups.
Mr. Rokita. At the end of the day, funds are not--would you
prefer having no cleanup be performed at an abandoned mine
site, or having a Good Samaritan perform a cleanup?
Ms. Pagel. A Good Samaritan. I mean we have supported Good
Samaritan cleanups in the past, and we continue to encourage
Good Samaritans to clean up any sites they are able to.
Mr. Rokita. Your remarks about reclamation fees and royalty
payments focus on issues that, if I understand the jurisdiction
correctly, are not part of this committee's jurisdiction and,
further, do not address the ongoing liability concerns that
innocent parties, including States and local government, face
if they want to clean up a mine site, large or small.
So, do you believe that the fear of exposure to strict
liability under Federal laws is causing many potential parties
to shy away from performing the cleanup activities?
Ms. Pagel. I think that the lack of funding and potential
legal liability issues are causing Good Samaritans and others
to shy away. I do note there are jurisdictional issues. But I
think that the reclamation fee and the Good Samaritan issue are
inextricably linked, and I think that there is agreement on
that issue.
Mr. Rokita. So your organization is on record that we need
to address these liability concerns?
Ms. Pagel. Yes.
Mr. Rokita. All right. OK. Anyone else want to comment on
the line of questioning I just gave to Ms. Pagel? Mr. Young?
Mr. Young. I would observe that in the first bill I worked
on with Representative Udall at the time, we had a Good
Samaritan permit provision in the Clean Water Act, and we also
had a funding source included. It was two titles. And the
funding provision became so controversial that we ended up
having to split that out. The funding----
Mr. Rokita. Controversial because people around here fought
on turf lines?
Mr. Young. It was----
Mr. Rokita. Or was it a tax issue?
Mr. Young. Taxing issue, ideological, political. I will
tell you that the provision that we had was we borrowed the fee
structure that Nevada currently has. Nevada has a fee system
for mining currently, and we just picked that up and borrowed
it and used it and we proposed it as a Federal fee-type system.
So--but we--I worry that, if we deal with that
specifically--I know it is not the committee's jurisdiction,
but I worry--I agree with every panelist who has said that this
is a major funding issue. I just think there is a way we can do
this without having to directly assess a fee or a royalty, in
that if you incentive more Good Samaritans, they bring their
resources to the table.
If the mining industry was a Good Samaritan and didn't have
to worry about the liability questions, they would bring their
resources to the table. Not just the mining industry, but the
States are ready, willing, and able to be Good Samaritans, as
well. The States themselves are thwarted because of this long-
term liability, perpetual liability question. So the more that
we can establish this program and have it working, the more I
think we can attract those resources without having to deal
with the political headwind of doing a fee or a royalty. That
is my opinion.
Mr. Rokita. And do you have a model State program in this
area?
Mr. Young. For?
Mr. Rokita. Good Samaritans or other programs, or anything
like that?
Mr. Young. Well, there are Good Samaritans that are doing
work as long as they don't touch the draining water. So there
are Good Samaritans doing work out there right now, but they
are just not touching the water, the draining water, the acid
mine drainage.
Mr. Rokita. Anyone else? Yes, Mr.--they always do this to
me. Staff brings witnesses in whose names I can't pronounce.
Mr. Cavazza. Cavazza.
Mr. Rokita. Thank you.
Mr. Cavazza. In Pennsylvania we have dozens of watershed
groups who I will call Good Samaritans for purpose of this
quick response. And they have undertaken dozens of restoration
projects at abandoned mine sites across the State of
Pennsylvania. And most of those cleanups were not done to
Federal Clean Water Act standards. However, they addressed a
significant portion of the pollution that came from these mine
sites, and they have made significant improvements in water
quality, such that many streams that were dead now support
healthy, aquatic life populations and fish populations.
And, you know, Pennsylvania does have a State Good
Samaritan program, and I think many of the features of that
program could serve to help develop a Federal--a similar
program at the Federal level.
Mr. Rokita. Let me quickly ask--my time has already
expired, but such is the tradition of this committee to go just
a little bit over.
I want the record to reflect Mr. Young was talking about
the fact that even mine operators could be Good Samaritans if
there were significant liability protections. Let the record
reflect that the questioner, Mr. Rokita, was nodding his head
in affirmation of that. Is there anyone who disagrees with that
concept on the panel? Anyone on the panel who disagrees?
[No response.]
Mr. Rokita. And let the record reflect that no--that all of
the panelists are nodding their head negatively, meaning they
don't disagree.
With that, Mr. Chairman, again, thank you for the hearing.
I yield back.
Mr. Gibbs. OK. A couple questions. I think maybe for Mr.
Young and Mr.--the person from Pennsylvania, I am sorry--you
know, there has been some talk maybe--well, first of all, the
Good Samaritans, how many are out there? I mean is it a lot, or
is it just a couple? I mean what would be the potential?
And I think, Mr. Young, you made a good comment there, that
for remining and resources there could be a lot. Can you give
us some idea? I mean we have got thousands of these abandoned
mines. What is the interest out there? Is it mining companies,
mostly, or is it Trout Unlimited?
Mr. Young. Well, I can tell you, just from doing a little
bit of research in my State of Colorado, that we have about 30
watershed groups that have been created and established for the
sole purpose of looking at addressing the impacts to their
watersheds, which is primarily coming from abandoned hardrock
mines.
So there are 30 folks right there. Then you add in the
State itself, and you add in groups like Trout Unlimited, who
has actually been doing great work in mines in Colorado,
specifically. Then you add the mining companies, you add the
tribes. I mean potentially you could have tribal folks, if they
have the wherewithal and could subcontract, as well.
So, I mean, the idea--if you see in my written testimony,
my definition of a Good Samaritan is a very broad definition.
Just anybody that wants to aid and make improvements, but
didn't have any past connections, it could be quite a few.
Mr. Gibbs. The point that I am trying to get clarified,
that is it significant? Because I think there are some out
there who say, ``Well, not really. We got to have all these
other resources coming in,'' and sometimes, if you tax too
much, you end up with less. So you know, I have a whole theory.
If you want more of something, tax it less. You want less of
something, tax it more. That might apply, if you get to a
certain level. Just editorialize there a little bit.
Anybody want to speak up about who should administer a Good
Samaritan program? Should it be the U.S. EPA? Should it be the
States or how should that be structured?
Mr. Young. Well, I would say that what we looked at in the
past would be thinking about having it be a delegated State
program. You do have to have somebody that would be looking at
the plans and proposals, and it could easily be the States.
But you are right. Whatever program, whatever mechanism you
choose to try to house this within, whether it is CERCLA,
brownfields, Clean Water Act, you would have to have somebody
that these Good Samaritans would go and get approval. So you
would have to work through those. But it is up to what makes
the most sense, and where you can get the most support.
Mr. Gibbs. Mr. Cavazza, you had a comment?
Mr. Cavazza. I will agree with what Mr. Young said. I mean
we feel strongly that the States are in the best position to
have primacy delegated to them to implement a Good Samaritan
program for, you know, Federal Clean Water Act liability
protection, and possibly CERCLA liability protection. We have a
lot of experience with delegated programs like the mining
program and already some delegation under the Clean Water Act.
So we would know the Good Samaritans and partners involved, and
also, I think, have a better handle on the problems, and what
the potential solutions are.
Mr. Gibbs. OK. Another question, I think probably for Mr.
Russell and Mr. Young, potentially, because you are in that
locale, I think. On the Gold King spill out there, we had a lot
of discussion with the first panelist about questioning the
expertise and their hiring of private contractors and an
investigation.
Does anybody want to comment on what your feelings are
about what is going on? Is the investigation significant? I
mean is it credible enough, the way they are going about it, or
should they go about it like the Tennessee Valley Authority
did? You know, what are your thoughts, being out there in the
area? What are you seeing? Not to put you too much on the spot,
but----
Mr. Russell. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I really am not that
knowledgeable about what EPA is doing on that investigation. It
is a tragedy that it happened, and I think it could have been
prevented by having the right expertise working on it at the
beginning.
Mr. Young. And I think you also heard that this particular
mine, the drainage adit, was part of a larger complex of
different mine tunnels. And the reason why I think we need a
Good Samaritan program is because it also protects people who
would go in and do investigations, thorough investigations.
Right now, that--because of liability exposure potential,
there is a discouragement to even go and really do thorough
investigations of just how the Gold King Mine connects with
Sunnyside or some other mines that are in that complex. And if
you do ``solution X'' on one adit, it might have some
implications in other structures underground. And I think this
may be an example--I don't know too much about the
investigation, so I can't answer your question specifically.
However, I am trying to use the Gold King as an example of why
we really need Good Samaritan program in Federal statute, so
that we can incentivize more people to do thorough
investigations to see how the underground hydrology works, and
not have to worry about even investigating being then saddled--
--
Mr. Gibbs. So what you just said to me, what--being a
novice, and, you know, not an expert in mining, we got an
interconnectivity issue in this mine, or this spill, and the
Bureau of Reclamation doesn't have the experts. We know the EPA
doesn't have the experts. We already, I think, came to that
consensus at the first panel. And if they don't bring in the
right people, we probably won't get the real determination of
what the investigation--what really happened, or--to have
another one.
Mr. Young. Correct. I think if you can--if we can find a
way to prevent or reduce the exposure of liability to folks who
would go in and poke around just to see what is there----
Mr. Gibbs. Got you.
Mr. Young [continuing]. Then, you know, I think we could
have more capability brought to the attention of these sites as
a complex, and potentially avoid a Gold King.
Mr. Gibbs. Mr. Wood, since you have got some experience out
there with Good Samaritan work, how many have actually carried
out and resulted in--you know, from this guidance that they put
out in 2012, have we got some positive results? What is your
experience?
Mr. Wood. So there is actually two sets of guidance that
EPA put out. One was as a result of a project that we did at a
place called American Fork Canyon in Utah, where we were trying
to protect a Bonneville cutthroat trout population from some
historic mine waste that was leaching into the stream. And we
negotiated an agreement with the EPA that became the basis for
what they call the Good Samaritan policy, which we think
provides an effective protection from CERCLA liability.
So we were able to use that. To my knowledge, I think we
are the only entity that has ever used the 2007 Good Samaritan
policy. We have used it three or four times to--basically, we
come up with a plan of operation, we have engineers that do
this for us. They then get that approved by the EPA, and we are
protected from liability, so long as we are not negligent.
As far as the 2012 EPA guidance, that was targeted at the
Clean Water Act. And frankly, we didn't feel that that
provided--that provides us enough protection to get involved in
issues of draining adits. So we will not be utilizing that.
Mr. Gibbs. OK. Just one last quick question in regard to
partial remediation and not going in and doing a complete
cleanup--because under the CWA right now it is potentially a
liability for Good Samaritans to have to go the whole route,
and that is one of the hurdles.
Is there anybody on the panel that doesn't support partial
remediation?
[No response.]
Mr. Gibbs. We are all good on that, right? I would hope so.
I just wanted to make sure, because of all the issues there.
So, Mrs. Napolitano, you have any final questions?
Mrs. Napolitano. Well, I would like to ask probably of Mr.
Russell, what is the process of a mine, when it is closed, a
hardrock mine when it is closed? What do they do to the mine?
Mr. Russell. That would--it is, obviously, a site-specific
response. But in general, at the end, at the latter stages of
the mining process today, mines are designed to be closed. So
at the latter stages of the active mining, activities are being
taken to recontour and regrade the site. To address any
residual chemicals, covering materials that could have
potential----
Mrs. Napolitano. How do they do that? How do they do that?
They put water in it? Do they fill it with water?
Mr. Russell. Well, if it is an open pit or an underground,
some may fill with water at closure. Some are dry closures. It
just depends on the geography of the--geology of the site.
Mrs. Napolitano. OK. And if there is a watershed coming
through, will that fill up that water--potential leak problems
in the future?
Mr. Russell. It is, again, site-specific. In many cases,
no. In some cases, that is a concern. But that would have been
identified in the initial baseline environmental study that
would have done exactly what Mr. Young was saying on some of
these abandoned sites that can't be done. But for an active or
a new mining operation that is thoroughly investigated prior to
the start of mining operations, so we know at the time of
closure if that would be an issue that needed to be addressed,
and we would try to address it as a part of the act of mining
operation, not leave it to the final stages of closure.
Mrs. Napolitano. But in the mines that have not been
covered through the mining law, it was prior to, the old
abandoned, what happens to them? I mean they are graded? Does
somebody go back and reassess them and be able to say these are
possibly--mines that are--possibly might be leaking
contaminants into the nearby streams or the rivers or the
aquifers?
Mr. Russell. You are talking about abandoned lands at this
point?
Mrs. Napolitano. Correct.
Mr. Russell. Yes. So abandoned mines that have been
identified and resources brought to bear, such as Trout
Unlimited and others through a Good Samaritan effort, or State
programs like in Pennsylvania, they are being addressed by
either removal actions, cover actions, et cetera, to address
whatever that source of contaminant is to reduce or remove it.
Mrs. Napolitano. But it depends on the size of the problem,
too, so that the Good Samaritans would not be able to go in and
clean up a major site. So what happens to those mines that are
not going to be considered doable for a Good Sam to go in and
work with?
Mr. Russell. There may be limits to what a Good Sam would
be interested and willing to do. But I think if the goal is
improvement in the environment, or reduction in risk to human
health or public safety, then there is a lot that can be done.
A big bang for a small amount of dollars can be achieved by
partial remediation at those sites.
Mrs. Napolitano. Right. But there are still going to be
some that are going to fall through the cracks, and how do we
protect the communities and the environment and all the other
things that are impacted with those that are not going to fall
into that let's look at them and find out where they are at, or
they are on the list, or their potential--what about those
mines?
Mr. Russell. Well, those sites, again, by making some
measured gains that we have seen through collaborative efforts
and through the State programs that Mr. Cavazza has talked
about, we are addressing those. But there--and not all the
sites. I mean you talk about--you heard half-a-million sites.
There is just a subset of those that pose any environmental
issue whatsoever. Some are a small pit, some might be a shaft.
But there are--in that universe it is only a subset of
sites that actually are posing environmental issues. Not to
undermine that--those impacts on those sites, but it is not all
of those sites.
Mrs. Napolitano. And to Mr. Wood, Ms. Pagel, is there some
aspect of this that we need to start maybe recognizing that
there is an impact, going to be a future impact on those that
are not being addressed, that are falling through the cracks,
if you will?
Ms. Pagel. Yes. While Good Samaritans can take on some of
these sites, and hopefully will, the--you know, the issue of--
you know, that the chairman brought up of taxing too much and
et cetera, you know, the hardrock mining industry in this
country has been able to take minerals from public lands
without paying a royalty--so for free--since 1872. They have
not paid a reclamation fee. They have significant tax breaks.
And it is the--in order to get those sites cleaned up that are
not going to be cleaned up by a Good Samaritan, we need
resources from a reclamation fee to do that. And it is long
overdue to have that type of reclamation fund.
Mr. Wood. I will simply add that, you know, I hope we can
get to a point that we are concerned about the mines that are
falling through the cracks. Because right now, the situation we
have is that EPA is worrying about 127 or so Superfund sites,
the worst of the worst. And then everybody else is running
around, trying to cobble together nickels and dimes, and
partnering with great fear of exposure and risk of liability to
get what we can done.
But the game is not about what is falling through the
cracks, because the cracks are defining the game right now.
Mrs. Napolitano. Well, what would you suggest is an
adequate and a fair way of dealing with it? Anybody.
Mr. Wood. Well, I mean, I think--you know, as I think you
have--this may be a rare hearing, where you have unanimity on
the panel, but I think we need to have Good Sam protection,
particularly relative to the Clean Water Act. And I think we
need to have a dedicated funding source. Now, whether that
comes from a tax or something else, you know, there are many
paths to the top of the mountain. But once you get there, the
view is the same.
The fact is we have to find a dedicated funding source,
wherever it comes from, because the magnitude of the problem is
too great to not.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you.
Mr. Young. I would submit that it is conceivable, if we had
a Good Samaritan program, that we wouldn't have any fall
through the cracks. I think there is enough--I just gave you
the number that we have, 30 watershed groups in Colorado. They
would be more than willing to take the initiative to find the
resources and the technologies to do the cleanup on anything
that is affecting their watershed.
And you know, clearly, because you asked, there are
techniques you can employ. They don't have to all be active,
meaning you don't have to create a wastewater treatment
facility that is expensive and that has to be operated
continuously. You can do passive systems, or you could even put
bulkheads in these draining adits to actually prevent any
future releases at all.
So, there is a range of technologies and techniques that
each have their own expenses associated and effectiveness. And
so I think--I mean I am just trying to suggest that I think if
we can get a Good Samaritan program going, and in place, that
the resources will come, and we may be able to capture all of
it, potentially. I mean that is the hope.
Mrs. Napolitano. And that also would bring to mind--in my
mind--the issue of recycling that water, reclaiming that water,
cleaning that water for potential use.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Gibbs. Just a quick question comes to mind. We talk
about the funding source, and I know Ms. Pagel says and Mr.
Wood says how necessary it is. I am assuming States do have
some fees attached to that hardrock mining. Anybody want to----
Mr. Young. Yes, some States do. I know Nevada has a State
fee.
Mr. Gibbs. OK. It is on hardrock mining----
Mr. Young. It is on hardrock.
Mr. Gibbs [continuing]. In Pennsylvania, I guess, but you
have probably got some fees----
Mr. Cavazza. We do have some small fees that noncoal
operators pay, but it is a very small fee, and it generates a
very small pot of money to deal with noncoal reclamation. But
the only fee Pennsylvania has for coal reclamation and
treatment of mine drainage from those abandoned mines is the
Federal abandoned mine land grants----
Mr. Gibbs. OK.
Mr. Cavazza [continuing]. That we receive, just like Ohio.
And as you know probably, the authorization to collect that fee
runs out in 2021. And just like funding needs for hardrock, I
think that fee needs to be extended, because there is a lot of
work left to do, and that--it has certainly gone a long way to
help solve the problem.
Mr. Gibbs. OK. Well, I want to thank all the panelists for
coming in today. It has been helpful as we work forward. I
think there is definitely a need, a consensus that we need to
do something to help the Good Samaritan policy, and to make it
work, because currently it isn't working very well.
So thank you very much, and this adjourns the hearing.
[Whereupon, at 12:32 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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