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FORMER MANAGERS OF COLORADO GOLD MINE SENTENCED
Release Date: 01/08/99
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FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JANUARY 8, 1999
FORMER MANAGERS OF COLORADO GOLD MINE SENTENCED
Sammye Buckner and Tom Chisohlm, both former managers of the now defunct Summitville Gold Mine in South Central Colorado, were each sentenced to six months confinement and were both ordered to pay fines of $20,000 on Dec. 18, 1998 by the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado in Denver. Buckner was the mine's General Manager from April 1988 to January 1991, and Chisholm was the Environmental Manager at the mine from August 1988 to September 1991. The defendants and the Summitville Consolidated Mining Co. Inc. (SCMCI), were part of a conspiracy which committed numerous offenses including discharging pollutants from the mine into Wightman Fork and Cropsy Creek. Both streams are tributaries of the Alamosa River which flows into the Rio Grande. The discharges violated the limits of the mine's Clean Water Act National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit. The conspiracy also involved making false statements and concealing material facts from environmental regulators. SCMCI pleaded guilty in May 1996 and has agreed to pay a $20 million fine. The mine closed operations in 1992 when SCMCI declared bankruptcy. Since that time, EPA Superfund and the State of Colorado have spent over $160 million cleaning up the mine site. The case was investigated by EPA Criminal Investigation, EPA National Enforcement Investigations Center, and the Federal Bureau of Investigations, and was prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice.
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