Change sought in rules for 6 Arkansas creeks

Cleanup at mine prompts request

State officials gave Halliburton Energy Services the OK on Friday to start a petition to temporarily change the water standards for six creeks in Hot Spring County, where a 77-year-old mine has polluted the streams for decades.

The water-standard changes are required to start the multinational corporation’s cleanup of the mine site, an effort that has taken 16 years to figure out and is expected to last another 12 years.

The Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission, which hears proposals to change Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality regulations, was presented with more than 4,500 pages of documents about the proposed change.

Commissioners approved without dissent the request to start the petition to temporarily change the standards after some discussion about how drinking-water systems downstream from the mine would be affected by the change and the work proposed to be done at the mine.

Halliburton must hold a public hearing on the standards changes and receive approval from Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s office and the Legislature before going back to the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission for final approval.

Company representatives said Friday that they don’t expect to increase pollution in the streams. Rather, the proposed temporary standards for them reflect the current conditions of the streams, which are already considered polluted. The changes would allow the company to work on the site and stay in line with water regulations while doing so, said Jim Malcolm, an environmental chemist with engineering contractor FTN Associates.

“It’s a way to be in compliance with stream standards,” Malcolm said.

Malcolm said the plan was a big step in addressing an issue — cleaning up old mines — that is being tackled for only the second time in the state.

The proposed changes to water standards would raise the allowable levels of sulfates and total dissolved solids for Chamberlain, Cove, Lucinda, Reyburn, Rusher and Scull creeks. They also would raise the allowable levels of chlorides for Chamberlain Creek.

Chamberlain Creek would be allowed 2,261 milligrams per liter of total dissolved solids, 1,384 milligrams per liter of sulfates and 68 milligrams per liter of chlorides. Cove, Lucinda, Reyburn, Rusher and Scull creeks would be allowed 500 milligrams per liter of total dissolved solids and 250 milligrams per liter of sulfates.

Sulfates are found along with metals in the form of salts, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The term “total dissolved solids” refers to the amount of certain substances, including minerals, salts or metals, dissolved in a water sample. Chloride refers to a compound involving chlorine. All are considered by the EPA to be “secondary” considerations in drinking-water standards, affecting the taste of the water.

The Magcobar mine north of Magnet Cove operated from 1939 until 1977 and was the site of open-pit and underground barite mining. Dresser Industries operated the mine, which was later obtained by Halliburton as a part of a corporate acquisition in the 1990s.

The mine site has a 90-acre, 480-foot-deep pit that has filled with water since the mine’s closure. The pit holds about 3.7 billion gallons. The water is acidic because it flows into the pit after running off pyrite-rich spoil piles, a process called “acid rock drainage.”

The pit has overflowed into nearby Cove Creek, which drains into the Ouachita River and into nearby Reyburn Creek, which flows into Francois Creek and then the Saline River.

In 2000, the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality entered into a consent administrative order with Halliburton to take measures to remediate the site while a site investigation and a larger feasibility study for its entire cleanup was conducted. Shortly thereafter, levees around the pit were stabilized, and from 2003 until 2012 the company operated a water-treatment system that filtered out some of the metals from entering streams.

The site was investigated from 2003 through 2007, and the feasibility study was conducted in 2009 and 2010. In 2010, officials drafted a Remedial Action Decision Document that outlined how to clean up the site. In May of 2016, the company and the Department of Environmental Quality entered into a consent administrative order requiring the Environmental Improvement Plan, which implements the Remedial Action Decision Document.

The cleanup will include restarting the water-treatment plant, which will filter out certain levels of metals from entering nearby waters. That plant is intended to reduce contact with the spoil ponds. Documents provided to commissioners indicate the cleanup also will involve remediating the spoil piles and capturing runoff to return it to the pit; revegetating sludge ponds; expanded capture and treatment to protect Chamberlain Creek; offering to get nearby residents off of well water and on to utility water; and regrading, stabilizing and revegetating protective dams.

Commissioners and an Arkansas Department of Health official discussed Friday the cleanup’s timeline and asked about the proposed change’s potential impact on public health.

“It really is sad to me to see that we have allowed this to go on for so long,” said Commission Chairman Ann Henry of Fayetteville.

Jeff Stone, engineering director for the Health Department , said increasing the actual degradation of the nearby water would pose a threat to downstream drinking-water systems in Malvern, Arkadelphia and Camden. Stone said the department would object “to any potential degradation of the water quality.”

Malcolm said the waters currently meet drinking-water standards for sulfates and total dissolved solids before entering the drinking water systems.

But, Malcolm said, “it is an absolutely appropriate question to raise, and it needs to be answered in the public [discussion].”

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