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The Brewer Gold Mine

By: Carolyn Agho, Gabrielle Pipitone, Maya Sabbagh

CLEANUP & CURRENT STATUS

ECOSYSTEMS EFFECTED

  • First cleanup action on November 1st, 1990
  • In 1995, the open pits were:
  • back-filled with treated/untreated mine wastes
  • capped with a clay liner, low-permeability soil, and topsoil
  • To keep contaminated ground water seeps from running into the creek, the U.S. EPA Emergency Response and Removal Branch took over the treatment of the water in December 1999
  • The proposed NPL took place on September 23rd, 2004.
  • The Brewer Gold Mine Cleanup was listed as final on the NPL on April 27th, 2005.

CONTAMINANTS

  • Contaminants can especially threat the health of living things when it is in a main breeding ground for animals, near a drinking source, or where hunting occurs.
  • Little Fork Creek, Fork Creek, Lynches River
  • Lynches River is used for a lot of recreational fishing
  • Are used for spawning, nursery, or adult habitat for the anadromous American shad, striped bass, and catadromous American eel

RECOMMENDATIONS

  • South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control issued a fish consumption advisory for the Lynches River due to the mercury contamination
  • The advisory recommends
  • consumption of redear sunfish be limited to one meal per week
  • consumption of largemouth bass and chain pickerel be limited to one meal per month
  • against consuming channel catfish or bowfin (mudfish)

WHAT HAPPENED

  • Primary contaminants of concern:
  • cyanide, selenium, and metals
  • including arsenic, chromium, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, silver, and zinc.
  • These were detected in
  • surface water samples
  • sediment samples
  • groundwater samples
  • The mine site was at maximum concentrations which exceeded screening guidelines
  • In 1990, large rainstorms caused a dam to break
  • 10 millions of gallons of the solution leaked out and flowed into Little Fork Creek
  • Nearly 50 miles downstream in Lynches River

LOCATION

-1 mile west of Jefferson, SC

BREWER GOLD MINE

  • Started in 1828
  • 1st used mercury in small scale pit mining
  • In 1987 they started doing open pits.
  • Mined over 12 million tons of ore and waste rock
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