Environmental remediation efforts are gearing up at the closed Questa Molybdenum Mine site in New Mexico, which operated for almost a century before shutting down in 2014. Declared a federal Superfund site in 2011, the cleanup is expected to take decades and cost the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over $1 billion.
The site's nine waste rock piles are currently being regraded to prevent erosion and reduce stormwater and snowmelt runoff. Don Bush, Chevron's lead engineer at the mine site, told the Tao News, "We've completely changed the shape," and added that eventually, "all the rock piles will be graded, covered and seeded." Workers have completed regrading one waste rock pile and are preparing to seed ground cover as early as later this year.