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HISTORY
OF THE CONTAMINATION
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1958, Homestake Mining (now
Barrick Gold) located uranium mill tailings facility less than ˝ mile NE of
Murray Acres—part of our community.
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Purpose:
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Process uranium ore—provide
profit for company
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Provide tax dollars for Cibola
County (formerly Valencia County)
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Unlined tailings pond seepage
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Uncovered windblown tailings
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1961—Homestake (now
Barrick Gold) & Anaconda (ARCO
notified by New Mexico Public Health Service of a serious health risk due to
pollution of alluvial aquifers
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1975—NMED/USEPA find
drinking water unsafe
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Homestake/now Barrick Gold provides
bottled water for residents
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1983—Group of Murray Acres
residents file suit against Homestake/now Barrick Gold for contamination of the
Alluvial aquifer
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1985 Lawsuit settled with
provisions:
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Homestake/Barrick Gold provides
municipal water to residents and pays residential water bill for 10 years
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Promises by Homestake/Barrick Gold
(verbally) to fully restore clean water within 10 years
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Site is simultaneously listed as a
federal EPA Superfund site
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Residents believed EPA would
successfully regulate Homestake/Barrick’s remediation efforts
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Residents assured only alluvial
aquifer (top) had been affected. No
other aquifers in danger.
CLEANUP
DATE PASSES
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1995 – Homestake/Barrick
Gold’s remediation fails--
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Residents’ wells still unusable
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Property devalued due to publicity
from the lawsuit and local knowledge of contamination
CONTAMINATION
WORSENS
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Homestake/Barrick, knowing it
cannot meet earlier promises, asks for a more lenient cleanup standard far
exceeding clean water drinking standards
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Not only alluvial Aquifer, but also
Upper, Middle, and Lower Chinle Aquifers contaminated.
Now affecting 9 sections of land downstream of site
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Possible contamination of San
Andres Aquifer, the water supply for Milan, NM—a village of approximately
4,000 residents (plume ˝ mile inside Village limits and advancing)
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2006--Review of the Second
Five-Year Report for Homestake Mining Company Superfund Site, Grants, NM.
NMED DP-200, NRC License SUA-1471and Discharge Permit App. DP-725
Our
Findings:
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Chinle aquifers inadequately
regulated
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Mist from evaporation jets
extending beyond site berms
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Unknown effects of potential radon
exposure from windblown tailings
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Undetermined extent of structural
damage to houses in nearby communities from injection wells and concomitant
changes in local geohydrology
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Contamination from Homestake/Barrick
Gold now mixing with DOE-controlled Anaconda (now Atlantic Richfield Oil—ARCO
and polluting additional communities
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Just notified the deepest aquifer
is also contaminated and this is our main irrigation aquifer
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Still no background monitoring
wells ahead of plume
SOLUTIONS
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The USEPA should expand the
Superfund District to include Anaconda (ARCO) millsite and Ambrosia Lake area
mining and milling discharges
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USEPA Region 6 should extend
Superfund designation and enacts cost recovery mechanisms
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U.S. Congress should revise current
Atomic Energy Act of 1954 to include mill tailings and water discharges as pollutants
rather than the current byproduct
materials.
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NRC and DOE should participate in
remediation of former Anaconda/ARCO mill tailings & find additional water
sources for Grants/Milan
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Talings should be removed for
permanent storage
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If cleanup considered unlikely, US
Congressional delegation works with responsible parties and US government to
compensate community
WHAT
YOU CAN DO
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Join or donate to BVDA—(contact
us)
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Write or call your elected
officials
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Ask them to sponsor legislation to:
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Extend the Homestake/Barrick Gold
Superfund site to a Superfund District and enact cost recovery mechanisms for
other responsible parties
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Ask your U.S. Senators and
Representatives to change the AEC Act of 1954 so byproduct
materials is recongnized as pollutants
and fall withing the Clean Water Act.
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Compensate community if their water
wells cannot be restored to drinking water standards
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Enact strict controls on future
Uranium Mining in NM
ABOUT
HOMESTAKE/BARRICK GOLD
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Homestake Mining Company was bought
out in 2001 by Barrick Gold (www.barrick.com)
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Total Sales
2004 – $1.9 billion
2005 -- $2.3 billion
2006 -- $ 5.6 billion
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Net Income for 2006 was $ 1.5
billion
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