AMERICAN FORK CANYON — An $800,000 three-year effort to remove old mine tailings from public lands in American Fork Canyon is nearly done, but those leading the project say efforts must now shift to private land holdings.
"We've taken care of 25 percent of the problem," said Ted Fitzgerald, who has been supervising the canyon cleanup. "There's another 75 percent still up there, but it's on private land. To do more, we need everyone to work together."
The newly organized Utah County chapter of Trout Unlimited is trying to help. They've hired Fitzgerald to spearhead efforts to find funding and organize the project, which would include cleaning up deposits left in the Mary Ellen Gulch area and finishing the Pacific Mine cleanup.
In the Pacific Mine area, a pile adjacent to tailings removed by the Forest Service needs to be dealt with.
In the "Live Yankee" underground mine, Fitzgerald estimates there are 35,000 cubic yards of waste material left from the mines worked during the late 1800s and early 1900s — waste piles that produce acid mine drainage that includes arsenic, lead, zinc, iron and cadmium.
In the Mary Ellen Gulch draw itself, mining from the Globe Mine has disturbed similar material, which the water picks up and carries downstream, creating potential hazards for people recreating in campgrounds and forest areas.
Cleaning up the Globe Mine will be especially difficult because the water will have to be separated from the waste material. Access is severely limited, and the project will be expensive since solutions aren't obvious or easy.
"In my mind, the Pacific Mine is the one to do first," said Reese Pope, Uinta National Forest supervisor. "We know what we need to do, and it'll only cost $150,000."
The problem with the leftover projects is twofold:
Nothing on private land can be moved onto public land.
Private owners must either give their permission for work to be done and/or help pay for the cleanup.
Richard Bass, the owner of Snowbird Resort and who also owns the Pacific Mine property, has offered to send in heavy equipment if someone else pays for the labor and any needed materials.
Efforts to find the owners of the Globe and Live Yankee mines properties, however, haven't been successful.
"The Environmental Protection Agency would've done all of this," Fitzgerald said, "but 9/11 hit and the funds were all diverted in other directions. I think this is an opportunity now for citizens to step up and say, 'The terrorists won't win! They won't stop us.' "
Pope said EPA sees the problem as non-critical since the heavy metals are not going into streams that supply drinking water. For that reason, the project doesn't warrant funding from the agency at this point.
Fitzgerald remains undaunted. He hopes to draw on grants from the EPA as well as money from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the Office of Surface Mining to pay for the ongoing reclamation.
Trout Unlimited is soliciting help and money from numerous avenues. Tiffany & Company of New York City is paying Fitzgerald's wage. The True North Foundation has also offered to help.
"We're thinking that in the long run, this will really improve the water quality and the fisheries," Pope said. "We want to restore the Bonneville Cutthroat up there."
"It's a synergy," Fitzgerald said.
"It's real exciting what's going on in American Fork Canyon," Pope said. "We're made great strides, but our cumulative efforts can do a lot more."
E-mail: haddoc@desnews.com