The Colorado Independent

Posts Tagged Leadville

FOX News brings out the dirtball in all of us, Leadville discovers

By | 03.19.10 | 8:38 am

Leave it to FOX News to elicit even more stereotyping on a story already loaded with bias.

Denver Post reporter Mike McPhee was discussing the bizarre case of Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, 31, of Leadville – arrested in Ireland in a…

Udall introduces new ‘Good Samaritan’ water clean-up legislation

By | 10.15.09 | 8:35 am

U.S. Sen. Mark Udall announced Wednesday that he introduced “Good Samaritan” legislation that would provide legal protection for non-profit and other groups who would cleanup water contamination issuing from abandoned mines across Colorado.

Colo. water cleanups hobbled by ‘Good Samaritan’ legal risks

By | 09.24.09 | 1:16 pm

LEADVILLE — It’s a fall morning in the mountains just outside this Lake County town. Contractors in yellow earthmovers are cleaning up acid mine drainage in the Sugarloaf Mining District. They’re part of a unique government-nonprofit-college collaboration that has made great strides in improving water quality in the Lake Fork of the Arkansas River. Everyone involved in this feel-good project, however, is a target of potential lawsuits under the Clean Water Act.

EPA proposes new clean-up plan for Leadville

By | 08.04.09 | 8:40 am

LEADVILLE — To outsiders, the amber hills of piled up mine waste, or tailings, that mark the countryside here are just part of the dramatic mountain scenery. But they’re the subject of a new round in a long conflict between historic preservationists and environmentalists.

To some long-time Leadville residents and state preservationists, the tailings piles are a valuable part of a distinct local history, a symbol of the great gold and silver booms of the past. To the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, though, they are poison, the refuse of a century and more of industrial extraction that, despite decades spent on clean-up efforts, is still leaching heavy metals like zinc and cadmium into area water, putting the Arkansas River and downstream communities and wildlife at risk.

She’s Not Gonna Blow!

By | 02.27.08 | 1:56 pm

For a couple of weeks we were warned that Colorado’s historic old mountain mining city of Leadville was doomed, about to be obliterated by some kind of Raging River of Toxic Death.