Mining Taints Town’s Water

The alpine roofs of Grizzly Hill School rise amid a forest where the air smells sweet and the water once ran clear and clean.

Today the indirect result of a now-defunct gold mine in California’s Sierra Nevada has contaminated the well water at the school and nearby homes in this area 55 miles northeast of Sacramento.

“It made me feel lightheaded when I drank the water, and then I barfed in the toilet afterward,” said 10-year-old Daniel “D.J.” Alger, a student at the school.

Experts say gold mining drained the area wells and exposed chemicals in the dry soil to oxygen--changing them into metals and minerals. After mining stopped and water flowed back into the wells, it picked up the tainted material.

A noxious mix of mostly metals--two in concentrations more than 100 times the legal limit--has tinged the school’s water brown. It smells acrid and tastes metallic. Eleven wells serving nearby homes are much the same.

Fifth-grader Jessie Lollich said drinking the water gave her headaches and nausea.

“It tastes kind of, well, yuck,” says Principal Linda Richter, making a face.

School and government officials, Siskon Gold Corp. and an advisory panel are struggling with the intrusion of metals into the water, but there are no apparent quick remedies.

“Everybody’s hoping and praying that as the late winter, early spring (underground) water recharge occurs, it will help solve this situation. We’ve been completely blindsided and smacked upside of the head by this,” said Kurt Lorenz, the citizen representative on the advisory panel to Nevada County.

Soon after school started, authorities notified parents and posted signs at the school’s drinking fountains that say, “Do Not Drink Water.” The 125 students in grades four to eight instead fill cups from bottled-water dispensers in classrooms.

Well water is used only in bathrooms for washing hands and flushing toilets.

The problem is being called a natural phenomenon brought on by unnatural circumstances.

Millions of gallons of flood water were pumped out of the mine during operations the last few years. First, nearby wells went dry. Since mining ceased in August and pumping ended, ground water has been recharging area wells and picking up the metals and minerals in the dry soil.

Scientists say there is no evidence that the contaminants came directly from the mine. Officials at Siskon did not return phone calls.

County health officials say that the substances in the water could make a person feel sick but that there wouldn’t be lasting ill effects unless someone consumed the water for years.

“Some of the levels of some of the chemicals might cause you to be nauseous or to throw up or maybe even to have diarrhea. It’s just like if you eat a rotten banana, it wouldn’t hurt you, but it might make you throw up,” said Norm Greenberg of the Nevada County Environmental Health Department.

Initial tests in September and October showed concentrations of iron as high as 133 times the level allowed by state law for drinking water. Manganese hit 163 times the legal limit; aluminum, 5 1/2 times; nickel, 7 times; and zinc, 4 times, officials said.

A mineral, sulfate, was just above the limit for short-term exposure. The water also was up to 13 times too colored, exceeded odor standards by as much as 17 times, and was nearly 20 times the standard for turbidity.

Some concentrations worsened between September and October; others went down. November test results aren’t back yet.

The school is hesitant to pay for an expensive treatment plant that might not be needed if the water improves, officials said.

Nearby, along a winding mountain road, wells serving 11 private properties also have been polluted by the mining operation.

Resident Robert Paulus, 60, said the fouled water must be heavily filtered before use.

“There was even sulfur powder floating on top of the water,” his wife, Shirley, 59, said. “It stunk like eggs.”

Suing Siskon, which went broke and ceased operating in August, has been discussed, said Lorenz, who added, “But what’s the point?” Moreover, the county says it has no liability for allowing the mine to operate.

Siskon is paying for thousands of dollars in improvements to landowners’ water systems and for bottled water at the school, in part with money from a surety bond the company was required to post before beginning operations in 1994.

But no one is sure how much it will ultimately cost to fix the problem.

“There is a lot of fear in the community,” Greenberg said. “There’s been a lot of antagonism toward the mine.”

School officials and landowners acknowledge previous water problems but nothing like they now face.

The phenomenon has not been without a little humor. As water levels changed in wells, people could hear air at times being drawn into or forced out of one of the wells closest to the mine.

“We have the only whistling well around,” Paulus said.

But mostly, sentiments match those of Grizzly Hill School teacher Pete Milano: “We just want our water back.”