A river of pollution that flowed from what was once one of the most important copper mines in the United States has been tamed, and life has returned to downstream waterways.
More than two centuries after people began exploiting the resources buried in the hills of Vermont, a river of pollution that flowed from what was once one of the most important copper mines in the United States has been tamed, and life has returned to downstream waterways.
"For the longest time, going upstream, was good to excellent, hit Copperas Brook, and I think 'nuked' was the best term," said Ed Hathaway, the EPA manager who has been working on the Elizabeth Mine project for years. In nearby Vershire, planning continues to clean up the smaller Ely Mine, another Superfund site, where work will begin once the funding, now estimated at about $24 million, becomes available. A third, even smaller complex of two abandoned mines, known as Pike Hill, in Corinth is also on the Superfund list and awaiting attention.
By the 1840s, the Thetford mine satisfied 75% of U.S. demand for copperas, but in the 1820s the location also began to produce copper, needed for ornamental uses, brass and, later, wire for electricity and communications. But the copper mine was reopened at the start of World War II to help fill government orders for the metal, vital in war production. Its importance continued through the Korean War, and during the 1950s it was among the country's top 20 producers.
Vermont environmental officials first began to note the condition of the river, which drains into the Connecticut River and there to Long Island Sound, in the 1960s.
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