LEADVILLE, Colo. — Rust-colored piles of mine waste and sun-bleached wooden derricks loom above the historic Colorado mountain town of Leadville — a legacy of gold and silver mines polluting the Arkansas River basin more than a century after the city’s boom days.
Enter a fledgling company called CJK Milling that wants to “remine” some of the waste piles to squeeze more gold from ore discarded decades ago when it was less valuable. The waste would be trucked to a nearby mill, crushed to powder and bathed in cyanide to extract trace amounts of precious metals.
Global Interest in Waste Reprocessing
The proposal comes amid surging global interest in re-processing waste containing discarded minerals that have grown more valuable over time and can now be more readily removed. These include precious metals and minerals used for renewable energy that many countries including the U.S. are scrambling to secure.
Circular Economy and Environmental Concerns
Backers say the Leadville proposal would speed cleanup work that’s languished for decades under federal oversight with no foreseeable end. They speak in aspirational tones of a “circular economy” for mining where leftovers get repurposed. However, for some residents and officials, reviving the city’s depressed mining industry and stirring up waste piles harken back to a polluted past.
“We’re sitting in a river that 20 years ago fish couldn’t survive,” Brice Karsh, who owns a fishing ranch downstream of the proposed mill, said as he threw fish pellets into a pool teeming with rainbow trout. “Why go backward? Why risk it?”
Environmental and Economic Implications
Economically favorable conditions mean remining “has caught on like wildfire,” said geochemist Ann Maest, who consults for environmental organizations including EarthWorks. The advocacy group is a mining industry critic but has cautiously embraced remining as a potential means of hastening cleanups through private investment.
CJK Milling could help do that in Leadville, Maest said, but only if done right. “The rub is they want to use cyanide, and whenever a community hears there’s cyanide or mercury they understandably get very concerned,” she said.
Potential Environmental Benefits
Overseeing Leadville’s water supply is Parkville Water District Manager Greg Teter, who views CJK Milling as a potential solution to water quality problems.
Many waste piles sit over the district’s water supply, and Teter recalls a blowout of the Resurrection Mine compelled residents to boil their water because the district’s treatment plant couldn’t handle the dirt and debris.
Global Mining Waste Statistics
The magnitude of mining waste globally is staggering, with tens of thousands of tailings piles containing 245 billion tons (223 billion metric tons), researchers say. Waste generation is increasing as companies build larger mines with lower grades of ore, resulting in a greater ratio of waste to product, according to the nonprofit World Mine Tailings Failures.
The additional insight added to the rewritten article explores the environmental implications, economic benefits, and potential risks associated with remining practices in Leadville and highlights the global interest in reprocessing mine waste to extract valuable minerals.
