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The toxic myth of Gold Hill Mesa

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Contributed by: Dave Hughes on 2/28/2008

Bill Vogrin, reporter for the Gazette Telegraph, has perpetuated the myth in a 'Side Streets Column' on February 28, that Gold Hill Mesa is just one huge dangerous toxic pile of gold ore tailings.

The occasion of his rant was the dust cloud created by high winds last week blowing over - not the 14,000,000 tons of tailings on the ground once occupied by the great Golden Cycle mill - but from the ground cover the state forced the developers to put on top of the tailings pile 10 years ago, which tailings from Cripple Creek had been deposited over 40 years from 1908 until the mill was shut down in 1949.

Now lets get this straight. There is no question that that ground cover, when dry, produces lots of nasty dust that can blow over the west side, whether in the close by trailer park, or into nearby neighborhoods.

But Vogrin repeats in alarmist language inflammatory words like "a 100 foot high piles of tailings awash in arsenic and lead," and "gullies carrying its toxic waste into Fountain Creek," and the dirt supposed to help prevent the "witches brew" from blowing or draining off the site.

Well guess what? Until equally alarmist local "environmentalists" ran around in the 1980s getting over-activist state employees and the newly formed EPA with their bachelor degrees in chemistry to declare Gold Hill Mesa a dangerous "Superfund Site" what evidence did anyone have that the hill was "dangerous" to one's health? How come over the period of 40 years where thousands of gold mill workers from Colorado City and the Westside there were never any local news reports or grave pronouncements by doctors or El Paso County Health officials or from the scores of written biographies of westsiders who lived and worked here for over 140 years that exposure to that crushed gold mill ore was dangerous?

The only, and very well known, chemical that was temporarily toxic that was used in the processing at Golden Cycle was dilute solutions of 'cyanide' that was used to dissolve the gold and silver in the crushed and roasted ore. And guess what? In 1977 no less a super-environmentalist professor from Colorado College - Dr. Richard Beidleman pronounced when Gold Hill Recyle Project was being proposed to City Council - that 'cyanides' break down to 'cyanates' rapidly and lose its toxicity. He said there was no reason why the City Council should not permit the Gold ore tailings from being reprocessed right on site, to extract as least half of the remaining 557,000 ounces of gold still in that big sand pile. So the City approved it.

Besides those well known kiddies from the west side and Colorado City fished in the dilute evaporation ponds where the cyanide was dumped.

How do I know this? Because I was involved with that project in 1976 before two partners split and the recyle project did not go forward.

But since the 1970s when EPA was created, and then the Superfund Project was launched, U.S. environmentalists have been running around trying to get every pile and pond of everything in the world declared dangerous. Sure there are such places with such high levels of toxicity, such as around big chemical plants, or nuclear waste sites that there are actually real risks to people. But the actual threats to life and health from the vast majority of such sites, and especially abandoned mine tailings is, in my lifetime opinion, miniscule. In fact even Vogrin quoted experts with the State Public Health and Environment agency saying "the dust probably contains toxins, but brief exposure is not a danger." A windstorm is a brief exposure.

If Gold Hill Mesa is dangerous, why hasn't the entire 6-mile-long Cripple Creek Mining District been declared a Superfund Site, health threat long since, and sealed off from everything from mining to gambling?

Now I won't argue about the blowing dust that has come off Gold Hill Mesa ever since the State and Feds required a thick cover of soil be added on top of the original tailings. One could argue that that requirement actually has contributed more to the blowing dust problem today than what was there between 1949 and 1990. Blowing dust originally became a problem in 1949 after Golden Cycle shut down its plant and the wet 'fines' lake dried up. So a group of unhappy Westside Wives whose homes were between 8th and 15th street periodically got red dust blowing through their homes, organized, protested, and Golden Cycle spent $40,000 'stabilizing' the surface of the pile. That worked for 40 years until the state made the real estate developer ADD soil on top! Now we have dust and the alarmist threat of all those heavy metals being ingested.

Sorry. I am skeptical that simply because really trace amounts of metals are in that huge sandpile, that there is an imminent threat to Colorado Springs people's health every time the wind blows, or it rains.

Blowing dust? Sure, that is bad on its own merits. But do we get it because of the original tailings pile, or because decisions made to cover it up?

The majority of the problem of Gold Hill Mesa is a self-inflicted wound by environmentalists creating one problem while trying to fix another one.

Besides I am more interested in the hard physical fact that, at this morning's gold price, there is still $560 millions worth of recoverable gold in that sand pile, - the 7% (578,000 ounces) of gold which remained behind the day Golden Cycle shut down their mill and moved it to Cripple Creek.

I told the developer who has tried to turn Gold Hill Mesa into a housing project, that when gold reaches about $2,000 an ounce - its approaching $1,000 - he will profit more by buying up the homes, tearing them down, and reprocessing that pile!

Or does the EPA regard Gold as dangerous-to-your-health? If so, better get rid of all your gold jewelry!

P.S. I think the biggest health risk of the EPA's incessant warnings about everything, is the worry-wart-anxiety by people who are getting to be afraid of EVERYTHING!

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Showing 1-3 of 3 comments

Submitted By: Stephanie Edwards

posted on 3/14/2008 @ 12:53:50 AM

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In reference to John Martin's response...stop wondering. There's plenty of research from independent experts that answer all of your "wonderings" about Gold Hill Mesa. Apparently it's more exciting to incite fear and discredit the most proactive and effective environmental project that has ever occured on this site - in this town - even nationally, than to do basic fact checking. Rumors are way more fun than research for those who enjoy spending time "wondering". Perhaps if people spent less time wondering rhetorically, and more time becoming informed citizens, the dialogue would be far more constructive. The fact is, dirt under the homes at Gold Hill Mesa has been tested and approved for safe living by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, among multiple other testing procedures throughout the property. Since all the facts on Gold Hill Mesa are available to the public, maybe you should wonder, instead, what's in your own dirt...

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Submitted By: Stephanie Edwards

posted on 3/14/2008 @ 12:52:39 AM

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Thank you Dave Hughes for publishing some truths about Gold Hill Mesa and setting the record straight on the recent onslaught of shoddy, inaccurate journalism.

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Submitted By: john martin

posted on 3/10/2008 @ 5:26:50 PM

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I wonder if the author is one of the investors. I wonder if he has any money in the construction industry. I wonder about the findings of the one named scientist. I wonder why no one has been allowed to build up there all this time. I wonder why those buying homes up there are required to sign a waiver that they will not plant any fruit bearing plants or shrubbery. I wonder why they were digging up there at night when they first broke ground. I wonder, just as the rest of us "alarmists". Perhaps we should build a kindergarten and daycare up there and then follow those children who lived up there their entire lives from 0-18 and see if they get cancer.

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Showing 1-3 of 3 comments

CONTRIBUTOR INFO

Dave Hughes

Colorado Springs , CO

Dave Hughes has posted 77 stories and 87 comments since joining on 3/1/2007. Dave Hughes 's average story rating is 4.9.

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