For decades, 30-foot high piles of mining waste have punctuated the horizon of a picturesque Colorado city, separating its main drag of Victorian-style houses from some of the states tallest mountains.
Weighing in at several million tons, the orange-and-hazel mounds are the looming remnants of Leadvilles mining heyday, when it thrived as a key hub in Americas gold rush.
But the precious metal-studded piles which have laid dormant for years are about to be awakened in efforts to remine the remaining specks of silver and gold using cyanide - and not everyone is happy about it.
Leadville locals have pointed out that stirring up the heaps could take them back to the citys polluted past, when the Arkansas River basin ran red with toxic lead, arsenic, and zinc from the mining.
Were sitting in a river that 20 years ago fish couldnt 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?
For decades, 30-foot high piles of mining waste have punctuated the horizon of the Colorado city of Leadville (pictured), separating its main drag of Victorian-style houses from some of the states tallest mountains
CJK Milling boss and mining veteran Nick Michael (pictured), 38, said the re-mining project is part of a mission to finally remove some of the biggest waste piles
Pictured: Michael holds an example of the byproduct of a proposed project to mine gold from piles of ore in Leadville
Leadville - home to about 2,600 people and the National Mining Museum - bills itself as Americas highest city at 10,119 feet (3,0084 meters) above sea level.
Mining remediation company CJK Milling is hoping to remine the waste piles to extract more gold. It plans to truck the waste to a mill where it will be crushed into powder and bathed in cyanide to extract trace amounts of the precious metals.
CJK Milling boss and mining veteran Nick Michael, 38, said the project is part of a mission to finally remove some of the biggest waste piles.
Standing atop a heap of mining waste with Colorados highest summit, Mount Elbert, in the distance, Michael says the rubble has a higher concentration of gold than many large mines now operating across the US.
In the old days, that wasnt the case, he said, but the tables have turned and thats what makes this economic … Were just cleaning up these small piles and moving on to the next one.
But City Council member Christian Luna-Leal said the project could inadvertently have the opposite effect - while impacting the citys most disadvantaged residents.
Stirring up old mine waste risks fouling the water, he said, while threatening the welfare of the majority Latino residents who live in mobile homes on the towns outskirts.
Weighing in at several million tons, the orange-and-hazel mounds are the looming remnants of Leadvilles mining heyday, when it thrived as a key hub in Americas gold rush
Brice Karsh, who owns a fishing ranch downstream of a proposed project to mine gold from piles of ore discarded decades ago, speaks about his concerns at his ranch in Leadville
Karsh warned that were sitting in a river that 20 years ago fish couldnt survive
Luna-Leal drew parallels with Leadvilles early days when mine owners treated Irish immigrants who did much of the work very poorly. Almost 1,300 immigrants, most Irish, are buried in paupers graves in a local cemetery.
There is a genuine fear ... by a lot of our community that this is not properly being addressed and our concerns are not being taken as seriously as they should be, Luna-Leal said.
The companys process doesnt get rid of the mine waste. For every ton of ore milled, a ton of waste would remain – minus a few ounces of gold. At 400 tons a day, waste will stack up quickly.
CJK originally planned to use a giant open pit to store the material in a wet slurry.
After that was rejected, the company will instead dry waste to putty-like consistency and pile it on a hill behind the mill, Michael said. The open pit downslope would act as an emergency catchment if the pile collapsed.
The magnitude of mining waste globally is staggering, with tens of thousands of tailings piles containing 245 billon tons (223 billion metric tons), researchers say.
And 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.
Pictured: City councilmember Christian Luna-Leal beside a detention pond containing mine waste in Leadville. He has raised concerns about the re-mining project
Pictured: an old abandoned mine in Leadville, Colorado, where remining could take place
Pictured: Water meanders through California Gulch past a mining slag pile belonging to CJK Milling south of Leadville, Colorado on May 9, 2024
This month, gold prices reached record highs, and demand has grown sharply for critical minerals such as lithium used in batteries.
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 theres cyanide or mercury they understandably get very concerned, she said.
Overseeing Leadvilles water supply is Parkville Water District Manager Greg Teter, who views CJK Milling as potential solution to water quality problems.
Many waste piles sit over the districts water supply, and Teter recalls a blowout of the Resurrection Mine compelled residents to boil their water because the districts treatment plant couldnt handle the dirt and debris.
More constant is the polluted runoff during spring and summer, when snowmelt from the Mosquito mountains washes through mine dumps and drains from abandoned mines.
Every minute, 694 gallons (2,627 liters) on average of contaminated mine water flows from Leadvilles Superfund site, according to federal records. Most is stored or funneled to treatment facilities, including one run by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
Pictured: The skyline of Leadville, Colorado looks much the same as it did almost 100 years ago, with church steeples, an opera house and hundreds of Victorian roofs
Pictured: a highway in Leadville, Colorado - Americas highest town above sea level
Pictured: An aerial view down Main Street in the historic Colorado mining town of Leadville
Up to 10 percent of the water is not treated — tens of millions of gallons annually carrying an estimated six tons of toxic metals, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency records show.
By comparison, during Colorados 2015 Gold King Mine disaster that fouled rivers in three states, an EPA cleanup crew inadvertently triggered release of three million gallons (11.4 million liters) of mustard-colored mine waste.
As long as Leadvilles piles remain, their potential to pollute continues.
There are literally thousands of mine claims that overlay each other, Teter said.
We dont want that going into our water supply. As it stands now, all the mine dumps are ... in my watershed, upstream of my watershed, and if they remove them, and take them to the mill, thats going to be below my watershed.
EPA lacks authority over CJKs proposed work, but a spokesperson said it had potential to improve site conditions by supplementing cleanup work already being done.
Moving the mine waste would eliminate sources of runoff and could reduce the amount of polluted water to treat, said EPA spokesperson Richard Mylott.
Other examples of remining in the Rockies are in East Helena and Anaconda, Montana and in Midvale, Utah, Mylott said. Projects are proposed in Gilt Edge, South Dakota and Creede, Colorado, he said.
Leadville - home to about 2,600 people and the National Mining Museum - bills itself as Americas highest city at 10,119 feet (3,0084 meters) above sea level
Leadville - home to about 2,600 people and the National Mining Museum - bills itself as Americas highest city at 10,119 feet (3,0084 meters) above sea level
Despite the mess from Leadvilles historic mining, Teter spoke proudly of his industry ties, including working in two now-closed mines. His son in law works in a nearby mine.
If it were not for mining, Leadville would not be here. I would not be here, the water manager said. There are no active mines in our watershed, but Im confident in what CJK has planned, he added. And Ill be able to keep an eye on whatever they do.