User:Nathan.cheever12/sandbox

Environmental impact
In 1990, homes that had been built on former flood plains were discovered to be contaminated with high levels of lead and arsenic. Activities to clean up 100 years of accumulated impacts began in the 1990s, under state Utah Department of Environmental Quality and federal oversight and are ongoing.

The EPA lists "Kennecott South Zone/Bingham" on its superfund webpage, because it was proposed to be listed as a superfund site in 1994, but voluntarily clean up of their contaminated lands allowed the company to avoid regulatory issues of being on the NPL. The proposal was withdrawn in 2008. The South Zone includes the Bingham Mining District in the Oquirrh Mountains, about 25 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, the open pit, waste rock dumps, Copperton Mill and other historic sites. More than 25 million tons of mining wastes have been removed, sludge with elevated sulfate concentrations was consolidated and capped on site.

1900 - 1909
By 1904, there were three large copper smelters and one lead smelter in the Salt Lake valley. The sulphur dioxide gas emissions from the smokestacks caused significant crop damage to neighboring crops. During the 1904-1905 winter, the farmers gathered together and decided to file suit against the smelters in the United States District Court of Utah. In 1906, Federal Court Judge Marshall ruled that the smelters could not smelt ores containing more than 10% sulphur, effectively closing all of the aforementioned smelters.

1910 - 1979
Kennecott Copper Mines was formed in 1910 after a merger of Utah Copper and Kennecott copper mining companies. By 1912, environmental protection organizations were complaining about high levels of asbestos being used in the organization. Kennecott Corporation was using asbestos for preventing fires since copper processing requires very high temperatures. Copper has a very high boiling point and also requires use of other chemicals to separate it from other metals and impurities present in the ore. Asbestos has microscopic particles that dispersed into the atmosphere and contributed to illnesses among workers and individuals living near the mines. Asbestos is responsible for illnesses such as pleural fibrosis, skin warts and lung cancer.

Kennecott Corporation was also cited as contributing to emissions of heavy metals such as arsenic and mercury. By 1940, arsenic and mercury were also some of the concerns that were raised by environmental protection agencies against Kennecott Corporation. Both mercury and arsenic are dangerous to health in large quantities.

1980 - 1989
Investigations in the 1980s revealed contamination in the groundwater caused by mining operations the release of hazardous materials. The State of Utah proceeded with legal action against Kennecott and filed a damage claim against the mine in October, 1986, for the loss and destruction of the natural resources, specifically the groundwater.

There was also a threat due to the tailings dam. An engineering report in March, 1988, gave information that the tailings dam overshadowing the town of Magna had threat of collapse due to an earthquake and that the billion-ton tailings pond would bury the homes nearby if the tailing pond’s embankment failed. The mine responded by proposing various potential strategies including buying up entire subdivisions near the tailings pond, calculating the company’s liability if the embankment failed, investing $500 million to reinforce the embankment, and colluding with state regulators to keep the engineering report out of the public eye.

1990 - 1999
Starting in the beginning of 1990s, dust emissions from mining began polluting surrounding areas, caused by an area near the mine where PM10 levels (particulate matter larger than 10 µg/m3) began to rise from 28μg/m³ to 50μg/m³, posing a severe health concerns for residents. The first report of PM10 rising was proposed by Schwartz and Dockery in 1992. Then, in 1997, Carter (a professor at Brigham Young University) put forward that the mine discharge of PM10 has caused damage to surrounding people's lungs.

In 1995, due to scientific research showing that mining had caused the pollution of groundwater, Utah passed laws to make Kennecott companies pay $37 million to control water pollution.

As a result of mine discharge sewage containing large amounts of arsenic and selenium – selenium being particularly toxic to birds, fish and amphibians – about 30% fish were killed in the early 1990s. In 1995 Kennecott, EPA and the State of Utah signed an agreement saying that Kennecott will continue to clean up the discharge sewage.

2000 - 2014
The EPA has estimated a 72 mile plume of contaminated groundwater has been created over the course of the mine due to multiple spills and runoff. Long term effects of the underground water supply contamination may include an increased demand for surface water solutions as the population of the Salt Lake valley grows since the county will not be able to tap into the groundwater supply.

In 2007, Kennecott Utah Copper LLC was considering expanding its land holdings to Rose Canyon Ranch in the southern Oquirrh mountains and Yellow Fork Canyon land in Salt Lake County. Kennecott claims rights to file a mining claim in accordance with the Stock-Raising Homestead Act of 1916.

In 2008, the United States Department of Interior Fish and Wildlife Service sued Kennecott after the release of hazardous substances including selenium, copper, arsenic, zinc, lead, and cadmium. A federal biologist claimed that these chemicals have caused great damage to the ecosystems and resources that support the migrant bird populations, as well as other fish and wildlife habitats.

In the northern zone near Magna, Utah, the extensive southern tailings pond has been collecting the tailings since the mine first started mining production. Kennecott Utah Copper LLC has requested permission for a Tailings Expansion Project (TEP) to expand the tailings pond impoundment in Magna, which is already at 1.8 billion ton capacity, and to expand on 721 new acres of wetlands south of the Great Salt Lake. The company has come under scrutiny for the instability of the structure. The Salt Lake Tribune published a report in 2007 revealing that the company failed to disclose information on possible damages that could occur if the tailings pond collapsed in the event of a major earthquake. From 2001 through 2009 there have been six earthquakes ranging from from 2.3 to 3.4 in magnitude with an average epicenter only 3 miles away from Magna.