[CPEO-BIF] Northern California's Iron Mountain mine

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Inside a toxic hellhole, Iron Mountain Mine

Peter Fimrite
San Francisco Chronicle
August 29, 2010

Redding -- A strange chemical smell lingered in the stifling heat as a 
group of environmental scientists groped in the darkness through one of 
the most polluted places on Earth.

The Iron Mountain Mine, outside of Redding, is a hellish pit where acid 
water sloshes against your boots, greenish bacterial slime gurgles out 
of the walls, and stalactites and stalagmites of acid salt, copper and 
iron jut out like rusty daggers.

...

The recent mine tour was, in part, an attempt to familiarize Jared 
Blumenfeld, the Environmental Protection Agency's recently appointed 
regional administrator, with the worst of the 128 Superfund sites in his 
district.

But it was also a lesson on the extent of the damage humans are capable 
of inflicting on their environment and the innovative methods of 
resolving those problems.

The EPA has taken extraordinary measures to neutralize the toxic mixture 
that polluted the Sacramento River and its tributaries for more than a 
century.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/08/29/MNB11F0DKL.DTL

--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org



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