Creede has ben waiting seven years for the EPA to get its act together and get going on the Superfund cleanup declared in 2008 to stop a flow of mine runoff from pouring into the Rio Grande River.

What’s the holdup? The feds are still studying the issue.

Meanwhile, the town folk have come up with a radical new idea to stop the contamination and clean up the mine site – they want mining to recommence.

“If we want to get this cleaned up, and not have taxpayers pay for it, we should be encouraging mining, not prohibiting mining,” said Zeke Ward, chairman of the Willow Creek Reclamation Committee, a local watershed group.

The article written by Bruce Finley however, proposes another solution: Taxpayers should give the EPA more money to finish studying the issue to death and then move on with a never-ending cleanup.

The EPA increasingly is unable to start new Superfund cleanups and takes longer to complete those in progress, including the cleanups above Creede and at other inactive mines.

Since 1983, Colorado has had 22 sites listed as environmental disasters bad enough to qualify for Superfund cleanup, 10 of them caused by mining, according to EPA records. Only three cleanups have been completed.

The program has been inept since, pretty near its inception, so we should give it more money?

No. We agree with Creede – give mining companies the “good Samaritan” protection sought by U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton that would allow them to continue mining and control the pollution without using taxpayer dollars.

While Congress is at it, maybe it’s time to take a closer look at the EPA as a whole, and whether they should continue with Superfund or find another solution that actually works.