Meeting/Event Information

The AIPG Colorado Section is excited to announce our next FREE virtual lunch talk on Wednesday, May 15, 2024 (this event is FREE, but you must register to attend). You will receive the Zoom meeting link in the confirmation of your registration - make sure and save this link to join on Wednesday.

Please join us in welcoming John Watson, who will be discussing the Good Samaritan Bill:

Abandoned Mines Remediation in Colorado
Proposals for Federal and State Legislative Solutions
  
ABSTRACT
 
Colorado is home to thousands of abandoned mines that have no viable owner/operator to fund environmental improvements. Although communities, non-profit organizations, and other interested parties across Colorado are ready to implement measures that reduce environmental impacts from abandoned mines today, a provision in the Clean Water Act (CWA) currently prevents these “Good Samaritans” from improving water quality at most of these sites.
 
This presentation will outline the Good Samaritan problem at the federal and state levels and review draft federal and state legislation that would allow Good Samaritans in Colorado (and indeed throughout the country) to improve water quality and reduce environmental impacts from abandoned mines without becoming involved in the “potentially responsible party” (PRP) imbroglio.
 
 Here’s the short story on this issue.
 
•    There are thousands of abandoned hardrock mines and related facilities in Colorado, with total liabilities for cleanup in the billions.
 
•    Many more sites exist throughout the county.  The GAO estimates that the U.S. has over 140,000 abandoned hardrock mine features, of which 22,500 pose environmental hazards. 
 
•    There are dozens of communities, non-profit organizations, and other interested parties that are willing and able to provide funds and labor to reduce environmental impacts from abandoned mines.
 
•    In theory, the Good Samaritan provision in CERCLA would allow these organizations to improve conditions, but a provision of the Clean Water Act would make these “Good Samaritans” liable for achieving all applicable cleanup levels, remedy performance, and long-term O&M if these actions create or treat a point source of pollution.
 
•    This conflict between CERCLA and the CWA has gone to the US Supreme Court, who sympathized with this dilemma, but ultimately ruled that this is a legislative issue that Congress needs to resolve in terms of which act takes legal precedence.
 
•    There is bipartisan support for this legislation at the state and federal levels, but only Pennsylvania has pushed through legislation to resolve this conflict for abandoned coal mines in that state.
 
•    A proposed bill in the U.S. Senate (S.3571) was introduced in 2002 and will be submitted again this year.  The bill is intended to address these concerns at the federal level.  The bipartisan Good Samaritan Remediation of Abandoned Hardrock Mines Act would make it easier for “Good Samaritans” such as state agencies, local governments, nonprofits, and other entities and persons to clean up and improve water quality in and around abandoned hardrock mines.
 
•    A similar bill (the Remediation of Mineral Development Sites Act of 2024) has been drafted for consideration in the Colorado legislature to provide clarification; the goal being that persons and entities in Colorado will not become responsible parties if they improve water quality at abandoned mines in our state.
 
•    Passage of the federal Good Samaritan Remediation of Abandoned Hardrock Mines Act and the Remediation of Mineral Development Sites Act of 2024 in Colorado would serve as important steps in removing unintended regulatory hurdles that prevent local communities and other stakeholders from implementing common-sense approaches to improving water quality at abandoned mines throughout the Centennial State.

John Leonard Watson is an attorney at Spencer Fane LLP in Denver, Colorado.  He has worked as commercial trial and litigation attorney for 48 years.  John has successfully represented clients in state and federal courts, pleading their cases before juries and judges in dozens of trials to verdict. During his 48 years practicing law, he has also represented clients before numerous federal, state, and local administrative and regulatory agencies and shepherded them through alternative dispute resolution forums including arbitration and mediation.

As both a defense trial attorney and counselor, John represents clients in a variety of complex commercial cases, including Superfund, and air, water, and waste environmental cases. breach of contract actions, real estate and land development, special district litigation, construction disputes between contractors and subcontractors, securities litigation, public land and natural resources law, mining, oil and gas, wildlife, toxic torts.  He advises landowners, as well as facility owners and operators on increasingly complex federal, state, and local environmental, health and safety, and land use regulations and ordinances.

He has published and taught extensively on trial tactics and litigation practice, real estate development, natural resources law, occupational health, and safety regulation, as well as every level of air, water, hazardous waste, and Superfund regulatory programs. For the last 23 years, he has served as a member of the trial tactics faculty at the National Institute for Trial Advocacy in Boulder, Colorado.

We look forward to John joining us on Wednesday, May 15!