Abstract

        Increasing environmental awareness over the past several decades has led to widespread concern about the adverse effects that heavy mining has had on the environment.  These effects are felt particularly in the form of water contamination from acid mine drainage and metal dissolution from mining waste rock.  The goal of the current study was to assess these effects on the James Creek watershed located in northwestern Boulder County, Colorado, where mining was prevalent from the 1850s – 1980s.  Specifically, a conservative chloride tracer was injected in the lower reach of James Creek in order to quantify stream discharge, and synoptic samples were taken to identify the sources that of metal and acid contamination in the creek and to quantify the loading of these metals.  The results of this study suggest that the Little James Creek, in addition to another metal source located 4.5 km downstream of the injection, are the two major metal contributors in Lower James Creek.  Our results may be somewhat limited in identifying all potential contamination sources in Lower James Creek because of the low flow conditions in the creek when our experimentation was carried out.  Finally, our results suggest that the effects of metal loading in the creek are spatially restricted by precipitation of metals.  

Back to top

        My research this summer was focused on identifying metal loading sources in the lower reach of James Creek, the 5 km stretch of James Creek located between the Little James and Lefthand Creeks.  Originally the research was supposed to focus on results obtained from experiments on the Little James Creek.  Unfortunately, the tracer injection and synoptic sampling experiment on the Little James Creek was not successful because flow in the creek was too low.  In fact, there were some places in the creek where surface flow had completely dried up when we attempted our experiment.  Consequently, the focus of this study shifted to the Lower James Creek, where although flow was decreased compared to expected summer averages, there was enough flow to successfully carry out the experiment.  We are pleased with the results obtained from our experiments on the Lower James Creek, and anticipate that once similar studies have been finished on the Little James Creek and the upper reach of James Creek, a more complete picture of metal contamination in the James Creek watershed will be achieved.
 

Back to top

 

Relevant  Links

Executive Summary from Left Hand Watershed Task Force
James Creek Watershed Initiative
Colorado Watershed Groups

Back to top