EPA, BLM dispute slows progress on Superfund site cleanup near Roseburg

Formosa mine cleanup slowed as toxics continue to threaten watershed.

Bureaucratic snags threaten to slow cleanup of the state's dirtiest abandoned mine, a Superfund site in southern Oregon that leaches 5 million gallons of fish-killing, acid rock drainage into nearby creeks each year.

The Formosa mine, a source of copper and zinc until 1993, is on a mix of private and public land managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management about 25 miles south of Roseburg.

The BLM says none of the contamination comes from its land, which includes thousands of feet of mine tunnels. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, overseeing the site under the federal Superfund cleanup program, says it's clear that a significant portion does.

The EPA won't go forward with the testing needed to begin cleanup on the BLM's portion of the land without the BLM agreeing to pay for it. But the BLM won't agree to pay, saying doing so could set a precedent and put the agency on the hook for cleanup costs estimated to run up to $50 million.

The impasse looks likely to delay testing on the BLM land and related cleanup work by at least two years, said Larry Tuttle, an activist who helped put Formosa on the Superfund list in 2007 after a 13-year battle to get it cleaned up.

It also means a faulty diversion system -- intended to keep contamination out of the creeks until a full cleanup is completed -- is unlikely to be replaced anytime soon, increasing the environmental mess, Tuttle said.

"We're in a situation where everything is on hold as it relates to BLM land and they can't do a comprehensive cleanup," said Tuttle, who directs the Portland-based Center for Environmental Equity. "There has to be a way for two federal agencies to figure this out."

No one disputes that Formosa, the most polluted of Oregon's 140 abandoned mines, is a quagmire.

Human health doesn't appear to be threatened, but 18 miles of Middle Creek and its South Fork, once full of steelhead trout and coho salmon, have been sterilized by mine pollution.

About 17,000 feet of tunnels filled with metal-laden tailings seep acidic groundwater -- on average, enough acid mine drainage water pours  out in a single day to fill two tanker trucks.

The Japanese owners, who operated the mine until 1993 under state-approved permits, long ago filed for bankruptcy, meaning the cleanup could land entirely in taxpayers' laps.

Robert Hall, a spokesman for the BLM's Roseburg district, said the agency didn't have the power to affect what happened at the mine or influence attempts to divert waste after it closed. "We feel like we're an injured party, too," Hall said.

The agencies are trying to negotiate an agreement on work at the site. "Until we have that in place, we feel it's a dangerous precedent" to agree to reimburse the EPA's costs, Hall said.

Denise Baker-Kircher, the EPA's project manager for Formosa, said her agency's relations with BLM staff members who work with the mine are "rock solid." Testing on non-BLM lands is progressing, and the agency is drawing on reams of past work to help identify the extent of contamination.

The EPA's request for reimbursement doesn't mean it thinks the BLM is responsible for the cleanup, Baker-Kircher said. But she said federal rules won't allow testing on the BLM's portion of the land or replacement of the faulty diversion system unless the BLM agrees to pay its share. The total costs are about $2.5 million, and Baker-Kircher figures the BLM is responsible for about half.

"We won't be able to do all the sampling we need to do without BLM's support," she said. "We're asking BLM to do work on this site in their role as a federal land manager."

In a letter to the BLM last month, Lori Cohen, the acting director of environmental cleanup for the EPA's Northwest region, noted that the BLM has twice "declined to take action" when the diversion system broke in 2008 and 2009.

The full cleanup likely will include digging out tunnels and storing and capping contaminated material on the mine's backcountry site, Tuttle said. It's likely to require perpetual water treatment, he said, both an active plant and settling ponds. "It's a massive job," Tuttle said.

The EPA is pursuing the Japanese company for cleanup costs, Baker-Kircher said. The state is responsible for 10 percent of the costs under federal law, Oregon officials said.

Tuttle thinks that federal rules would allow the EPA to do the work and bill the BLM. If the impasse isn't resolved, he said he's prepared to file a suit under Superfund law that would seek to have the BLM and Oregon declared responsible for the cleanup.

The BLM has a long history of delays at the site, Tuttle said, and the state failed to adequately monitor mine operations or ask for EPA help when it was clear the cleanup was too big for the state alone.

"It just seems to me that so much time and so many resources have been wasted by the interagency infighting," Tuttle said. "That's what I find so frustrating."