Wash. Mine Fined For Water Quality Violations

Washington's Department of Ecology has fined a gold mine in northeastern Washington for water quality violations.

RICHLAND, Wash. – The Department of Ecology has fined a gold mine in northeastern Washington for water quality violations. The mine has faced numerous penalties over the past five years.

The Buckhorn Mountain Mine is required to capture and treat polluted wastewater. But for the past two years, according the Department of Ecology, the water storage area has overflowed during spring snowmelts. That’s caused a landslide and increased levels of nitrates and acidity in a nearby creek.

Joye Redfield-Wilder is with the Department of Ecology. She says parent company Kinross Gold maintains that it has a water treatment plan in place. But, Redfield-Wilder says, the plan will not work, if storage areas cannot hold enough water.

“They need to have built-in additional capacity. If we had an extreme water year, there will be more polluted water.”

The $395,000 assessment is the largest water quality fine for the company. For its part, though, parent company Kinross Gold says the landslide happened during heavy rainfall. The company says it has doubled its treatment capacity in the past year.

On the Web:

Dept. of Ecology press release:

http://www.ecy.wa.gov/news/2012/240.html

Kettle River-Buckhorn operation:

http://www.kinross.com/operations/operation-kettle-river-buckhorn-usa.aspx

Copyright 2012 Northwest News Network