Spills at Kennecott’s Green’s Creek Mine, Alaska
Kennecott Mineral’s majority-owned and operated Greens Creek Mine has reported leaks totaling 2,095 gallons of diesel fuel from March 3, 1996 to June 16, 2005, an average of 233 gallons a year. Reported diesel spills, of course, do not include amounts for diesel exhausts. Diesel fuel contains cancer causing elements, such as benzene.[1]
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), fuel oils, such as diesel, are considered “light” oils which, even if spilled on water, will evaporate in a matter of days. However, while present, diesel fuels can kill animals and plants in the spill area (including downstream, if a waterway spill). Fish are harmed especially when the spill occurs in a shallow or confined water body.
Over the same time period, Greens Creek also reported 1,689 gallons in spills of hydraulic oil. In a spill, some hydraulic oil will remain on the soil surface with the rest entering the groundwater system. Although almost nothing is known regarding the toxicity of the constituent elements in the breakdown of hydraulic oil, the oil itself is known to have neurotoxic effects on humans.[2]
Primarily a producer of silver, Greens Creek’s also contains a concentrator facility that produces lead concentrate. On December 22, 2004, Greens Creek reported a lead concentrate spill totaling 30,000 pounds. Lead is commonly found in ore with silver, zinc and primarily copper. Lead concentrate contains between 50 and 60% pure lead. As with mercury, another heavy metal, lead is bioaccumulative, collecting in the fatty tissues of fish and mammals. Lead is considered particularly disruptive in the neurological development of children. Mining, smelting and refining activities have caused dramatic increases in environmental lead levels.[3]
Enacted in 1986, following Union Carbide’s Bhopal disaster, the Toxics Release Inventory Program (TRI), under the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)discloses company spill/release data for public consumption. Currently, the EPA is proposing changes to the program. The changes would allow companies to report biannually, annually release up to 5,000 pounds of toxic chemicals without disclosing the total volume of the chemicals or where the pollutants went, and conceal releases of up to 500 pounds, annually, of PCB’s and heavy metals, such as lead and mercury.[4]
Greens Creek Mine and Kennecott’s copper operations, in Utah, are two of the nation’s top six generators of toxic releases (all six are hardrock mining operations). For 2006, Green’s Creek is ranked 7th on the EPA’s TRI. Alaska currently leads the nation in air, land, and water toxic emissions.[5]
2 ATSDR, “Toxicological Profile for Hydraulic Fluid,” September, 1997
3 ATSDR, “Toxicological Profile for Lead [draft],” September, 2005
4 Eilperin, Juliet, “EPA Backtracks on Easing Toxin Rule,” Washington Post, November 30, 2006
ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.
Donate