SNOWBIRD — It was, from the beginning, an unusual union — a ski resort, a conservation organization, a world-renowned jeweler and a government agency.
Together, they accomplished a first in the environmental community.
Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort, Trout Unlimited, Tiffany & Co. and the U.S. Forest Service, together, made American Fork Creek a much cleaner water.
To do it, they had to clean up tailings at three old mining sites on Snowbird property in American Fork Canyon.
For their work, Snowbird and TU received the Environmental Protection Agency's Environmental Good Samaritan Achievement Award, citing trailblazing efforts to achieve "significant environmental benefit."
Then the National Ski Area Association presented its highest award to Snowbird — the Golden Eagle Award — for
overall environmental contributions. This was the second time in 10 years Snowbird has been recognized by the NSAA for environmental excellence. NSAA represents 326 ski areas in North America.
Finally, Snowbird and TU received Utah's Earth Day award for environmental excellence.
What was involved was the cleanup of tailings from the abandoned Pacific Mine, Blue Rock Mine and Scotchman No. 2 mine located on land owned by Snowbird in the American Fork drainage. The abandoned mines are about three miles from the resort's Hidden Peak.
It was determined that air and water coming in contact with the tailings created an acid drainage, which resulted in high levels of heavy metals — lead, arsenic, zinc, iron, copper and cadmium — entering the stream in American Fork Canyon.
The level of lead coming from the mines was 10 times higher than the federal Clean Water Act standard allowed.
Ted Fitzgerald, representing TU, said he was involved in the cleanup of seven mines on public land while employed with the USFS. Following his retirement, he was contacted by TU and asked to continue the work on private land.
After a year and a half of negotiating with the EPA, along with funding raised by TU, work on the cleanup started in 2005 and was completed in 2006.
"It took that long to get a memorandum of understanding from the EPA to use roads and information I gathered when I was with the Forest Service," said Fitzgerald.
At the onset of the project, he contacted Tim Baker, hill maintenance director for Snowbird, about the cleanup. Baker, he said, "Jumped at the opportunity and, among other things, Snowbird offered equipment, a work force and fuel costs."
"It wasn't something we had to do," said Laura Schaffer, director of public relations at the resort. "But we felt it was important to the environment. Among other things, we hoped this would encourage others to get involved in similar projects."
This was the first time a conservation group, like TU, and a private company, like Snowbird, had come together for mine reclamation work under an agreement with the EPA.
Along with some funding at the onset of the project, Tiffany and Co. has donated other money to support similar project in other states. (Tiffany has a contract with Kennecott to supply gold and silver for its jewelry and was very interested in helping support the Utah cleanup effort.)
Since the Utah cleanup, Fitzgerald said, two projects have been completed in Idaho and one in Colorado, "and they are about to get going on a project in Montana," he added.
Tailings from the three mines were removed from their original location and placed in a repository. There was roughly 40,000 cubic yards of waste at the Pacific Mile location, which could have covered a football field with 18 feet of waste.
The pile was capped with impervious plastic and the area covered with an erosion-control blanket embedded with native flowers, grasses and soil to create a permanent repository.
There are dozens of abandoned mines in the canyon. Currently, only one, the Live Yankee Mine, located deep in Mary Ellen Gulch, about four miles from the mouth of the American Fork Canyon, is polluting the stream.
"This is a huge waste dump discharging acid drainage," said Fitzgerald. "Because of its location we would have to remove the tailings, which would cost millions of dollars. At this point all we want to do is intercept the drainage and keep it from coming in contact with the waste drop.
"The problem right now is we can't locate the owner. We've been trying for seven years. Once we get the owner's permission, we can start the project. Snowbird has already committed to help even though it does not own the land."
The project would take only a few weeks and would cost about $10,000 to complete. The Snowbird cleanup cost around $220,000.
The American Fork site is one of more than 500,000 orphaned mine site in the western United States.
E-mail: grass@desnews.com