The California Gulch NPL Site is comprised of approximately 18 square miles in Lake County, Colorado, including the City of Leadville, approximately 100 miles southwest of Denver in a highly mineralized area of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Mining, mineral processing, and smelting activities have produced gold, silver, lead, zinc and approximately 2,000 mine waste piles with the NPL Site.
This Removal Action will be implemented in accordance with the Work Plan of Lake County Community Health Program (LCCHP Phase 2), the selected remedy in the OU9 Record of Decision (OU9 ROD). The LCCHP Phase 2 Work Group has approved remediations at the three residential properties due to elevated blood lead levels in children who reside at these properties and exceedance of trigger levels for soils (and, in some cases, other media). Under normal operating conditions, the State of Colorado through the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment (CDPHE) would perform these soil remediations. However, due to contracting constraints at the State, these soil remediations will not be completed before the construction season ends. Therefore, due to the high concentrations of lead in residential soil, in conjunction with elevated blood lead levels of children who reside at these properties, EPA is instituting this as an emergency response.
