Powerful or Pitiful: Tom Wiens and the Leadville Mine

Last week the Inside Edge took Senator Tom Wiens off of our Top Ten list. He’s marked at 11a. We did so, because for a guy who wants to be Governor, he just wasn’t getting a whole lot done or been very visible down at the legislature.

Our mistake.

On January 28th the Lake County Board of County Commissioners apparently contacted Wiens about the impending disaster at the Leadville Mine Drainage Tunnel which is operated by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

Water heavy with contaminants has been backing up in the mine and polluting downstream drinking water as well as posing a risk of a catastrophic failure akin to a burst dam. The result could be heavy loss of life and almost certain widespread heavy metal contamination in the Arkansas River basin.

The basin stretches from its source in Leadville to Napoleon, Arkansas where it empties into the Mississippi.       

The County had been working with the EPA and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment since last October to get the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to dewater the mine. But of course the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation did nothing to help.

That is, until Wiens got involved.

Wiens’ letters to both Governor Ritter and to President Bush outlining the problem in Leadville seemed to have cut the Gordian knot.

“Don’t ever underestimate Tom’s ability to get things done,” says one source who knows the senator well. “The guy once rescued someone from a burning building. The problem is that often the stage is too small in Colorado. Give him a big dramatic problem and he’s all over it.”

Since receipt of Wiens’ letter Ritter has directed the Colorado Division of Emergency Management to help coordinate a solution as well as asking President Bush directly for federal help in dewatering the mine.

And the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has subsequently agreed to go ahead a dewater the mine.   

Our verdict: Powerful