Washington's Department of Ecology has fined a gold mine in
northeastern Washington for water quality violations. RICHLAND,
Wash. – The Department of Ecology has fined a gold mine in
northeastern Washington for water quality violations. The mine
has faced numerous penalties over the past five years. The
Buckhorn Mountain Mine is required to capture and treat polluted
wastewater. But for the past two years, according the Department
of Ecology, the water storage area has overflowed during spring
snowmelts. That’s caused a landslide and increased levels of
nitrates and acidity in a nearby creek. Joye Redfield-Wilder is
with the Department of Ecology. She says parent company Kinross
Gold maintains that it has a water treatment plan in place. But,
Redfield-Wilder says, the plan will not work, if storage areas
cannot hold enough water. “They need to have built-in additional
capacity. If we had an extreme water year, there will be more
polluted water.” The $395,000 assessment is the largest water
quality fine for th