Silver
Creek Watershed Stakeholders’ Group
Park City
Library Meeting Room
Draft Meeting
Summary
Meeting
Attendees
|
Chris Morley |
DOI/Solicitor |
801-524-5677 x. 236 |
|
Mike Nelson |
BLM |
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Mark Fitch |
U |
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Al Mattes |
Nature Works |
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Lee Duncan |
UACD |
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Jeff Schoenbacher |
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Chris Cline |
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Bob Wells |
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Muhammed Slam |
UDEQ |
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Dave Allison |
UDEQ |
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John Knudson |
UT State Parks |
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Jennifer Chergo |
EPA |
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Peggy Churchill |
EPA |
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John Whitehead |
UDEQ / MDWQ |
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Dana Williams |
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Tom Bakaly |
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Kerry C. Gee |
United |
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Carl Adams |
UDEQ / WQ |
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Brent Giles |
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Bill Duncan |
Nature Works |
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Jim Fricke |
UPCM Consultant |
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Ron Ivie |
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Scott Miller |
UPCM Consultant |
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Julie Zamora |
United |
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Michele Straube |
Facilitator |
Stakeholders’ Group Goals Review
The full stakeholders’ group had not met for a year. The group was started in 1999. There has been turnover for many of the
stakeholders. Many environmental improvements
have been accomplished, while many are still to come. The focus of the group is moving downstream
in the watershed. Ms. Straube asked the
group to revisit the stakeholder group goals that were developed in 1999, to
see whether they continue to be relevant and complete. The goals can be viewed in their entirety at http://www.silvercreekpc.org/goal.htm
.
The group felt the goals were still appropriate, but might
benefit from some fine-tuning. Anyone
with specific suggestions on changes / improvements to the goals should e-mail
them to Michele Straube. Updating the
goals will be an agenda item for the next full stakeholders’ group meeting.
Update on Schedule for Watershed
Cleanup
Peggy Churchill and Jennifer Chergo are drafting an annual
fact sheet, which will contain a summary of progress in the watershed and a
general schedule for the future. They
expect the draft to be ready by the end of February. It will be circulated to the full stakeholders’
group for review before being finalized, and then will be posted on the website
and placed in the site administrative record.
Kerry Gee updated the group on the past year’s activities in
·
Second year of stream restoration
·
One quasi-municipal storm drain project
·
Stormwater retention pond created as
part of
·
Stream channel restoration completed (
·
Beginning June 2006, small boulder
walls will be built along restored stream channel
A stakeholder group tour of the
Peggy Churchill gave a regulatory update:
·
The Record of Decision (ROD) has been
written
·
A Department of Justice attorney has
been assigned to negotiate the Consent
Decree(s) that will formalize the ROD and settle past costs
·
A Remedial Design / Remedial Action
(RD/RA) will be developed from the ROD and will form the basis of the work plan
·
Work is planned to start this summer
Kerry Gee updated the group on the past year’s activities relating
to Richardson Flats:
·
Tailings were moved from Daly West to
Richardson Flats
·
Screening of materials to construct a
wedge buttress has begun
·
Other potentially responsible parties
(PRPs) have been contacted to participate in negotiations with DOJ about past
costs
·
A consultant has prepared a draft
RD/RA, which is currently undergoing internal UPCM review
·
Work is planned to start this summer
The following points were made in response to questions:
·
9,000 gal/min were flowing through the
wetland at Richardson Flats in spring 2005; the wetland hosted many ducks and
birds, including white-faced ibis
·
Construction at Richardson Flats will
be a 3-year process
·
Richardson Flats has been offered as a
repository for tailings from other parts of
·
The rail trail will reopen through the
Richardson Flats area once remediation has been completed
·
Ownership of the rail trail has
transferred from State Parks to
Soils Ordinance Area /
Jeff Schoenbacher provided the following updates about the
past year’s activities under the ordinance and
·
The soils ordinance boundaries were
expanded to include additional properties with mine tailing impacts, and will
be expanded again in spring 2006
·
At least 38 additional properties in
the original and expanded ordinance area were capped last year; 255 properties are now compliant with the
ordinance
·
Many capped properties were soil
tested; the few properties that failed have either completed corrective actions
or are under a schedule to do so
·
Various education and awareness-raising
efforts about the ordinance and its requirements are ongoing
·
The topsoil assistance program provided
over $21,000 to 46 property owners
In response to a question:
The soils ordinance program does not address water infiltration in the
soils ordinance area, whether from precipitation or surface flow.
Status of Delisting of Prospector
Peggy Churchill gave a long-awaited announcement – the
Prospector area has been archived from EPA’s CERCLIS database. She
also reflected on the following:
·
The
·
The soils ordinance work group’s
efforts and the resulting
Middle Reach Silver Creek
For discussion purposes, the Middle Reach of Silver Creek
includes the general area by the drain at
A subset of the full stakeholders’ group (including current
property owners Park City, BLM, United Park City Mines and Utah Parks) will
continue to meet to refine the goals for the Middle Reach of Silver Creek, and to
develop investigation and remediation / restoration options.
FWS Natural Resource Damage Assessment
Chris Cline gave the update:
·
Impetus for the natural resource damage
assessment (NRDA) is reaching a settlement with United Park City Mines for
Richardson Flats
·
FWS anticipates working cooperatively
with UPCM
·
Current stage of NRDA is preliminary
assessment
Lower Silver Creek
For discussion purposes, Lower Silver Creek runs from Hwy
248 at the edge of Richardson Flats to the dairy. Several stakeholders indicated that current
and future development plans for properties abutting Lower Silver Creek make it
timely to identify and address any remediation / restoration requirements in
this stream segment.
Michele Straube will convene a work group to focus on Lower
Silver Creek. This will involve calling
current stakeholders and others to gather information, identifying additional
stakeholders as needed and potential issues, and organizing an introductory
work group meeting.
After considering at least one other option for addressing
contaminated flow from the Prospector drain (a reverse osmosis unit pilot) and
rejecting the option as uneconomical and obtrusive in a park setting,
Dr. Mark Fitch gave a presentation summarizing the results
of
There was extensive discussion about the proposal,
highlights of which include:
·
There
was a practical question about how the horizontal wetland would be
constructed so that the gravel and substrate would be kept separate during
construction (and possibly during maintenance).
·
There
was extensive discussion about the likelihood of the constructed wetland
freezing, and the possible negative consequences.
·
What
are the ramifications, if any, of phasing the proposal?
·
The
potential was raised for infiltration of pre-existing contaminated groundwater
into the constructed wetland, causing UPCM to suggest that a clay liner might
be advisable to guarantee that the biocell works as designed.
·
Details
about the anticipated concentrations of metals in the outflow from the Phase I
biocell were requested, with specific reference to TMDLs and aquatic toxicity,
along with details of the long-term monitoring.
Dr. Fitch planned to submit an
updated biocell proposal to
Next Meeting
The full stakeholders group should
meet again in the March / April 2006 timeframe.