By Hannah Grover, City Desk ABQ
The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation today intended to make it easier for abandoned mines to be cleaned up.
The Good Samaritan Remediation of Abandoned Hardrock Mines Act would shield nonprofit organizations, state agencies and other groups from assuming the liabilities and responsibilities associated with an abandoned mine.
The legislation received support from both advocacy groups and industry associations, which say the bill represents nearly three decades of work and advocacy.
National Mining Association CEO Rich Nolan said the passage marks a step toward securing a “key solution to tackle the long-overdue cleanup of legacy abandoned mines.”
Trout Unlimited President and CEO Chris Wood described the passage as a “victory for common sense.”
“Clean water is a basic human right,” he said in a statement. “The bill will allow organizations such as Trout Unlimited, local communities, and states to pilot new approaches to making our waters cleaner and our communities healthier.”
The bill has already cleared the U.S. Senate and now heads to President Joe Biden’s desk.
Because the bill was heard as an individual piece of legislation under suspension of the rules instead of being packaged together with other pieces of legislation, it required two-thirds of the House supporting it.
The legislation does not apply to coal mines, but will make it easier to clean up gold, silver, uranium and other mines.
There are more than 100,000 miles of streams and rivers that have high concentrations of heavy metals, in part due to mines that closed decades ago and were never remediated.
Nonprofit organizations are interested in doing work to improve the water quality in those streams and prevent toxic waste from leaking from mines into waterways. But they are currently limited in how much work they can do and what type of work they can do.
These groups can do what is called a “dry site” project such as moving mine waste rocks away from waterways. If the organization tried addressing the metal-laden waters leaking out of an abandoned mine, it could face liabilities for the past pollution from that mine and it could leave the group on the hook for cleaning up all of the pollution from the mine.
The Good Samaritan legislation would change that by allowing groups to apply for Good Samaritan permits to remediate sites without facing liability for past, present or future pollution from the historic mine.
The bill also directs the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to establish a Good Samaritan pilot program and issue the Good Samaritan permits.
Groups applying for these permits must meet certain requirements.
U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-New Mexico, sponsored the Good Samaritan Remediation of Abandoned Hardrock Mines Act of 2024.
“For more than 25 years, Good Samaritans have tried to clean up abandoned mines but have faced significant hurdles and liability rules that hold them responsible for all the pre-existing pollution from a mine — despite having no involvement with the mines before their cleanup efforts,” Heinrich said in a statement following the vote. “With today’s passage, we’ve now cleared one of the final hurdles preventing these groups from helping to protect the land, water, fish, and wildlife our communities rely on. This victory belongs to every single person who rolled up their sleeves to fix this longstanding injustice, and I’d like to thank those who have carried the baton to get us to this point. I am grateful for President Biden’s support of the bill, and his signature will allow Good Samaritans to get to work.”
Other sponsors include U.S. Rep. Celeste Maloy, R-Utah, Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, and Susie Lee, D-Nevada.
“This legislation has been decades in the making,” Maloy said in a statement. “I’m grateful for the bipartisan support of my colleagues and the many stakeholders across the country who helped us achieve this milestone. With my bill in place, state agencies, non-profits, mining companies and other volunteers can clean up abandoned mines without being held liable by the EPA or undergoing extensive permitting requirements.”
U.S. Reps. Teresa Leger Fernández and Gabe Vasquez, both Democrats from New Mexico, co-sponsored the legislation, as did U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-New Mexico.
Abandoned mines threaten waterways in New Mexico as well as other drinking water sources.
These mines include dozens of abandoned mines in the mountains of southwest Colorado where the headwaters of the San Juan and Animas rivers are located. In 2015, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was doing work at one of these mines — the Gold King Mine — and accidentally triggered a spill of millions of gallons of toxic, orange water into the headwaters of the Animas River. The Animas River flows into New Mexico northeast of Aztec and joins the San Juan River in Farmington.