Join the public call to action

Environmental groups and concerned citizens invited.

Sign our petition and tell our government to provide immediate response and fund a permanent solution to the Leadville crisis. Your comments are most welcome.

Senator Tom Wiens open letter to concerned citizens and environmental groups everywhere.

Dear fellow citizen,

I am making this appeal to you because I know you have a strong concern for our environment. I share your concern and I now need your help.

In the face of an imminent environmental disaster which would start in my District, I urge you to join me and the people of Leadville, Colorado, to help save the Arkansas River.

This affects the people of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas -- all of whom rely on the Arkansas River. This is why we need national support from environmental groups like yours across the country.

At the source of the threat is the Leadville Mine Drainage Tunnel (LMDT), which is part of an abandoned mountainous mining district that has been owned and operated by the Federal government since the 1940's.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) operated the LMDT to facilitate mining production for the war effort during World War II and the Korean War. However, since then, the BOR has neglected the LMDT, bringing us now to the brink of an environmental catastrophy.

Specifically, the BOR has ignored the cave-ins that have occurred over the years inside the LMDT. As a result, the 11,000-foot-long draingage tunnel is now filled with over 1 billion gallons of contaminated water. In other words, a wall of water, laden with toxic heavy metals, has built up to 200 feet high inside the mountain and is held back only by cave-in rubble and 65-year-old rotting timbers.

To make things worse, this year's snowfall in Colorado has been unusually high, already 170% of what we normally experience. When this snow melts a few weeks from now, the water level inside the drainage tunnel will rise dramatically, adding more pressure against the rubble dam.

Nothing is known about the true strength of this accidental dam, and the BOR has yet to fix the problem, even after years of warnings and pleas. With Spring only weeks away, we now fear an overwhelming environmental insult, and we must turn to you for help.

If the rubble dam breaks, we would have a toxic mine pool blowout that would force the evacuation of local residents, destroy the wildlife in the region, and contaminate the Arkansas River, which runs through Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas before reaching the Mississippi River.

Please help us avoid disaster. Join us in demanding that the Federal government fix this problem.

Visit our website, www.SaveTheArkansasRiver.org, which is dedicated solely to this emergency. Find out more, and then join us in taking action. For starters, here are 6 ways you can help:

1. Sign our online petition, or urge your American colleagues to sign. Feel free to add your own language to the petition.
   
2. Use our free video clips and raw footage in your media distributions.
   
3. Call our Governor Bill Ritter at 303-866-2471 and demand action.
   
4. Contact President George Bush at 202-456-1414 and demand emergency response.
   
5. Call Mike Ryan, the regional director of the Bureau of Reclamation, at 406-247-7600 and demand immediate response and a permanent fix to this problem.
   
6. Create your own call to action and share it with us.

I invite you to join us at SaveTheArkansasRiver.org. We are caught in a race against time, and our main obstacle is bureaucratic inaction. We need your help, we need your voice, the voice of reasonable people seeking unified command over a common threat.

In the Colorado State Senate, it is my privilege to represent the people of Leadville and the beautiful Lake County. We greatly appreciate any support you can give us.

Sincerely,

Senator Tom Wiens