LEAD MINE PAYS RECORD PENALTY; ASARCO ALSO MUST BUILD A WATER TREATMENT PLANT

FARMINGTON -- Officials in Poplar Bluff, Piedmont and other cities and towns down river from a polluting lead mine say they expect to hear from the state if excess lead discharged into the Black River poses any danger to their supplies of drinking water.

American Smelting and Refining Co. Inc. (ASARCO), based in Farmington, agreed Thursday to pay a record $1.7 million penalty and build a water treatment plant to settle claims that it discharged lead in excess of state environmental limits. The claims were made against a Reynolds County lead mine the company operates on the West Fork of the Black River in Reynolds County.

The West Fork Mine is located about 20 miles south of Bunker.

At its worst, the discharge was five times higher than the legal limit, Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon said.

Piedmont and Poplar Bluff both get their drinking water from the Black River.

"I just finished testing our water for lead and we passed by bounds," said Harold Allen, utilities manager for the city of Piedmont. "We may be taking extra tests" if the Missouri Department of Natural Resources orders it, he said.

The department monitors drinking water safety throughout the state.

"It probably is something we'd take into consideration" when setting up water treatment parameters, said Doug Bagby, general manager of utilities for the city of Poplar Bluff, adding he was not aware of any excessive lead levels in the city's water source before treatment.

"Anything like that that might change the water treatment process, usually the state would notify us," Bagby said.

In Poplar Bluff, he said, most of the water treatment concentrates on removing silt and mud from the water.

"Black River has historically been a good river to drink from," he said.

Allen and Bagby both stressed that their cities have not been notified of any potential danger, and said the discharge upstream may not affect water supplies in their communities.

DNR officials were not available Friday.

Darrell Himmesoete, general manager of ASARCO's Missouri Lead Division, said the company was in compliance with state standards until those standards were strengthened in 1991.

"In '91, the standards were modified, at which time it moved us out of compliance," Himmesoete said.

In 1991, the state lowered the acceptable lead limits from 0.3 milligrams per liter to 0.1 milligrams per liter, said Mary Still, a spokeswoman for the Missouri attorney general's office.

But from 1991 to 1994, tests of water being discharged from the West Fork Mine showed lead levels as high as 0.5 milligrams per liter, Still said.

"That's five times the environmental standard," she said, adding that while state standards were getting tighter, ASARCO's violations were getting worse.

The West Fork Mine has been in operation since 1984. About 4,000 tons of lead are processed daily at the mine, and about 1,200 gallons of water per minute are discharged from the mine.

Since 1991, Himmesoete said, ASARCO has been working with the state on a plan to reduce the level of lead discharged from the West Fork Mine.

That plan calls for construction of a "state of the art biotreatment system" to treat water flowing out of the mine and into the river, he said.

The company is waiting for the green light on a construction permit from the state for the treatment system, Himmesoete said.

Once the permit is approved, he said, construction of the treatment plant will take 210 construction days.

The plant will utilize natural materials, including sawdust and manure, to break lead and other chemicals in the discharge down into naturally-occurring compounds, Himmesoete said.

"It's actually set up like a compost heap, where you get the bacterial action," he said.

Himmesoete said ASARCO agreed to pay the penalty in order to bring about the settlement and proceed with construction of the treatment plant.

"We have closely monitored the mine water discharges at West Fork. While we're concerned about any exceedances of state standards, we've seen no evidence that our discharges pose any threat to the West Fork of the Black River," he said.

That's not ASARCO's call, Nixon said.

"This is a situation where you've got a pristine Ozark stream and someone who continues to violate environmental standards," he said, adding the lead levels were monitored over a numbers of years. "Clearly it's not up to ASARCO to make the determination of what's environmentally acceptable in the state of Missouri."

Nixon said the state's environment is "something that we're going to pass onto our children, and we're going to litigate pretty strongly to protect it."

ASARCO produces nonferrous metals, including lead, copper, zinc, gold and silver. The company also operates a mine at Sweetwater and a smelter at Glover.