The EPA has announced that its 20-year cleanup of a former copper mine in Strafford is coming to an end, and that it will turn over site monitoring to Vermont authorities.
The EPA project manager, Ed Hathaway, will make a last visit to the Elizabeth Mine Superfund site on Nov. 18, according to the Lebanon Valley News.
According to the newspaper, the agency is also attempting to evacuate its equipment before snow and winter weather make it more difficult.
The former mine’s EPA project manager, Ed Hathaway, said, “You’re looking at something that took the better part of a century and a half to produce – an extensive area, hundreds of acres of contamination.” “What you inherit determines the level of cleanup and its scope.”
The land will be taken over by the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, however the EPA will continue to provide technical help and conduct evaluations every five years. The property is still held by a private individual.
According to John Schmeltzer, a hazardous site manager for the Department of Environmental Conservation, the state will spend roughly $61,000 a year mowing, sampling, and maintaining the EPA-installed treatment system.
The cleaning of the superfund site, which cost $90 million, began in 2001. Since the 150-year-old copper mine closed in 1958, contaminated water had been leaking into streams from waste rock and tailings, harming animals and residences nearby.