October 9, 2007--Leadville cleanup hits snags (Denver Post)
Leadville won't be removed from the list of the nation's most polluted sites until local officials enact permanent land-use restrictions and other safeguards to prevent exposure to heavy metals, according to a new federal review. Since the town was declared a Superfund site in 1983, federal, state and local officials - as well as the remaining companies that owned the mines - have struggled with determining who was responsible and what work really needed to be done. More than a century of hard-rock mining left the town with a legacy of acid mine runoff that contaminated the Arkansas River and tailings piles that leached heavy metals; and left some of the town's children with unhealthy levels of lead in their blood.
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