Mine Water

I ran across this article about a little discussed side effect of the high snowfall that Colorado has received this year. I worked on a project at my previous job with the EPA expert that is quoted in the story. On that project, there is a similar mine pool that has built up behind a collapse in the mine. It is located near Ward, Colorado, in an area with few homes. I also worked on a project a few years back that involved a surge of water from a mine subsidence (a collapsed mine that looks like an open pit). In that case, the mine had collapsed causing the pipe that conveyed the creek through the mine site to break. The creek then flowed directly into the mine and exited out of a mine pond that formed in a downgradient collapse. That year we had a heavy runoff and the subsidence pit started to fill up from the increase in stream flow entering it. After awhile, the pressure head increased causing enough pressure within the mine to "blow out" the collapsed mine entrance. This caused a nasty slug of water to enter Little James Creek, near Jamestown, resulting in a fish kill, but no human injuries.