Colorado Politics — MINTURN – In the 1980s, as Vail was gaining international notoriety as a global ski destination and Beaver Creek was struggling through its formative years, there was a dirty little secret in the river flowing between the two resorts – a fish-killing mix of arsenic, zinc, cadmium, lead and copper causing the Eagle River to run a rusty orange on its way to the Colorado River.
The Eagle River was largely devoid of aquatic life after a century of gold, silver and zinc mining between the towns of Minturn and Red Cliff near Vail. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency put the Eagle Mine near Vail on the Superfund cleanup list in 1986. That process, begun when Ronald Reagan was president, is still grinding on.
Nearly three decades later, the spectacular 2015 Gold King Mine accident — triggered by an EPA contractor — released millions of gallons of the same heavy metals that poisoned the Eagle into the Animas River near Silverton, causing that river to infamously turn the same hue as the Eagle 29 years earlier.
SIlverton-area residents at first resisted a Superfund designation, fearing it could dampen the region’s vital tourism industry. But the EPA made the designation in September 2016. And embattled EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt last year declared a cleanup of the vast complex of old mines near Silverton a top priority.
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