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BLM Working To Stop Flow Of Contaminants From SW Oregon Mine

Liam Moriarty / JPR News
Highly acidic mine runoff flows from a culvert near the abandoned Formosa mine near Riddle, Oregon.

This summer, the Roseburg Bureau of Land Management is working to stop the flow of heavy metal contaminants from the Formosa Mine southwest of Riddle into nearby creeks.

BLM Project Manager Susan Lee said copper, zinc, mercury and gold had been mined from the site off and on from the early 20th century until the mid-1990s.

Cheyne Rossbach, the spokesman for the Roseburg BLM, said the mine fills up with water, so the agency had tried to close off the access point to the mine when the site closed.

“But there’s a drainage port, so water from inside that mine comes up and drains out and leaks heavy metals,” Rossbach said. He added this toxic water has been flowing from out of the mine to the Middle Creek drainage, then on into Cow Creek.

“The remediation at the time of closure was not successful and now we have some ecological concerns there with the damage to natural resources, specifically the contamination of the water,” Lee said.

Read the whole story at the Roseburg News Review ...