The Barite Hill/Nevada Goldfields site is located approximately 3 miles south of McCormick, SC between US 378 and US 221 on the northern side of Road 30 in McCormick County, SC. The mine site is relatively remote; there are no buildings, homes, or commercial buildings within 0.5 miles of the boundary. The site actively mined gold from 1991 to 1995. From 1995 until Nevada Goldfields filed for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy in 1999, the reclamation of the site was being addressed by Nevada Goldfields. On July 7, 1999 Nevada Goldfields handed the facility’s keys to SCDHEC and abandoned the site.
The site is located along a topographic high ridge area forming the headwaters of an unnamed tributary to Hawes Creek. The topography of the area consists of rolling hills with ridgelines at an elevation of about 500 feet. Within the site, the ridgeline comprising the site has a high point of about 510 feet and an average elevation of approximately 480 feet. The permitted mine site totals 795.2 acres. Of this total, 659.7 acres are designated as buffer area (areas not disturbed beyond the pre-mine natural state); therefore the maximum disturbance area is 135.5 acres.
The facility used a cyanide solution in a heap leach process to extract gold from ore. There are 7 processing ponds onsite containing an unknown amount of free-liquids. Three large, multi-acre, waste rock piles contaminated with cyanide are left onsite. Each waste rock pile has the potential for producing acid. Storm water run on and runoff are not controlled at the site. The Main Pit from the mining operations remains. The pit contains approximately 100 million gallons of water with a pH of 2 ~ 2.2 and a high dissolved metal content. Seeps from the main pit containing acidic water with high dissolved metal content are being released to the northern unnamed tributaries of Hawes Creek which borders the pit.
As per a referral by the State of South Carolina, the EPA Region 4 Removal Program is currently conducting a Removal Assessment according to the National Contingency Plan.
The OSC, CIC and ATSDR rep attended a State sponsored community meeting on May 7th in McCormick. A general background on the site was given to the public by the State and EPA presented an updated pH gradient map. In addition, the public was informed that the EPA's assessment would be complete by the end of June 2007 and a recommendation would be made shortly afterward.
Awaiting ERT assessment report which includes the BOR inventory report. Scheduled completion by mid June 2007.
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