This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
It's not the 3 million gallons of bright yellow sludge that washed through the Four Corners area a year ago, but the Tibble Fork Reservoir sediment that blackened a creek in American Fork Canyon does share some similarities.
In both cases, it's a project involving the federal government, with a private contractor hired to carry out the work. And in both cases, those in charge didn't anticipate well, and decades of toxic old mine waste came cascading down.
So while Tibble Fork will never be the multi-million-dollar disaster that the Gold Creek Mine spill was, it is another reminder that decades of hard-rock mining have left our beautiful mountains with a poison legacy. It's also a sign that we need to give that legacy more attention.
Tibble Fork is a small reservoir built 50 years ago to provide irrigation water. Fed from mine-laden mountains, the reservoir accumulated arsenic- and lead-tainted sediments to the point where it didn't hold much water any more. To restore capacity, the reservoir was drained so the dam could be built higher. The irony is that the decision was made to build a higher dam, rather than removing the sediment, because it was thought to be better than digging the toxins up. Instead, they've been dragged miles downstream.
Fish are paying the price, with biologists and trout fishermen reporting dead fish seven miles downstream near the mouth of American Fork Canyon. Other species will feel the impact, too.
It was avoidable. Managing sediment flow while draining a reservoir is a well understood process, and the reservoir's location in the heart of the central Wasatch should have made careful management mandatory. Irrigation is the main and historic use of the reservoir, but it is the thousands of Utahns who use American Fork Canyon for recreation who will be living with the sludge over the short term.
Who is behind this dam rebuild? A lot of people, and that may be part of the concern. It is a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-approved project on U.S. Forest Service land under the auspices of the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service. It also has a local sponsor, the Northern Utah Water Conservancy District, which uses the irrigation water and is paying about $2.3 million of the $7.3 million cost, with the federal government picking up the rest. Add in the private contractor, and the division of responsibility becomes, well, murky.
In the end, the Tibble Fork river of sludge may not spark lawsuits and congressional hearings like Gold Creek, but it also won't be the last mess if we can't learn from it. Those downstream will be waiting for the answers.