This has been a very rainy spring. The Buckhorn Mine is required to treat water from the mine shafts and from the dewatering wells. The company is taking measures to increase the capacity of their water treatment system so they can treat the 7.5 million gallons of water stored in sumps in mine shafts. In the meantime, the company is trucking waste water (25-30 gpm or over a million gallons per month) to the tailings pond. There has not been an environmental review, mitigation or permitting for this out of basin transfer of water.

Water truck being filled, parked next to Water Treatment Plant (Spring 2010)