A federal environmental cleanup site near Vail has landed on the Environmental Protection Agency’s national list of contaminated areas with the greatest expected redevelopment and commercial potential.
The Eagle Mine Superfund site just outside of Minturn is among nearly two dozen federal cleanups across the U.S. that were on the list released Wednesday.
“EPA is more than a collaborative partner to remediate the nation’s most contaminated sites, we’re also working to successfully integrate Superfund sites back into communities across the country,” EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said in a written statement. “Today’s redevelopment list incorporates Superfund sites ready to become catalysts for economic growth and revitalization.”
The Trump administration says the redevelopment list is meant to direct interested developers and potential owners to Superfund sites that could be transformed into something of great value.
The list comes as Pruitt has been working to overhaul and streamline the EPA’s Superfund program. That process has included identifying the Gold King Mine near Silverton and surrounding mining sites as priorities for federal cleanup.
The Eagle Mine site, which sits on about 250 acres south of Minturn in Eagle County, has been on the EPA’s National Priorities List (also known as Superfund) since 1986 because of heavy metals draining into the Eagle River and uncontrolled waste piles.
Since 2001, the site — which includes a water treatment plant — has been in a post-remedy operation and maintenance phase of cleanup, according to the EPA.
The mine closed in 1984 after roughly a century of pulling gold, silver, copper and zinc out of the ground, leaving behind elevated levels of arsenic, cadmium, copper, lead and zinc in soil, surface water and groundwater, the EPA says.
Because of the site’s proximity to Vail and Beaver Creek, the area has for years been eyed for development — albeit not without some controversy from local residents concerned with the prospect of too much growth.
The EPA says it has been working with state health officials and development company Battle North, LLC, to complete cleanup at the Eagle Mine to allow for homes to be built there in the future.
“Over the past decades, cleanup actions taken at the Eagle Mine site have addressed soil, groundwater, and mine waste contamination and significantly improved water quality in the Eagle River,” EPA Regional Administrator Doug Benevento said in a written statement. “Our recent efforts with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and Battle North build upon that progress with new remedies for soil contamination that will make portions of the Eagle Mine site ready for residential use.”
The full list of Superfund sites with redevelopment potential can be viewed here.
