The District Attorney’s Office plans to find and sue the parties
responsible for the mercury pollution oozing from the New Idria
mine in south San Benito County that causes the nearby San Carlos
Creek to turn orange.
Hollister – The District Attorney’s Office plans to find and sue the parties responsible for the mercury pollution oozing from the New Idria mine in south San Benito County that causes the nearby San Carlos Creek to turn orange.
District Attorney John Sarsfield has assigned a special prosecutor to pursue civil action for damage created by the now abandoned mercury mines. County officials have estimated the cleanup could cost $1.5 million to $2.5 million.
The office is in the early stages of pursuing a lawsuit and has yet to conclude who should be held liable for the pollution. Prosecutors won’t pursue action against Sylvester Herring, a New Idria property owner who pleaded no contest in November 2002 to criminal charges that he illegally stored and disposed of waste there. He agreed to pay $200,000 toward the cleanup.
Herring, though, was only one contributor to the contamination in the New Idria watershed, and he’s paid his dues, according to special prosecutor Roy Hubert.
The county, meanwhile, won’t have to pay Hubert for his legal services because the California District Attorneys Association provides lawyers for free on complex cases that demand expertise.
The mine site was one of the largest producers of mercury in North America during parts of the 19th and 20th centuries. In the 1920s, New Idria became the No. 1 supplier of mercury to the U.S. Department of Defense, which used it to produce munitions, detonating agents and other components during World War I.
Since 1976, when it was abandoned, extremely acidic water from the mines has flowed into the creek and made about five miles of the waterway unlivable for animals.
Sarsfield, who has been to New Idria twice, said the area’s buildings create an impression of a “run down army base.” Aside from the polluted creek, there are hills of mercury-laden materials leftover from the mine, while some soil is saturated with the element, he said. He described a containment pond there as “something from a bad horror movie.”
“That place is a disaster,” Sarsfield said.
The county may try to follow the lead of the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, which forced a company to clean up mine pollution in New Almaden, said Sarsfield and Hubert.
“There’s no reason to reinvent the wheel,” Hubert said.
Hubert thinks the civil action against former or current property owners of New Idria likely would fall under one of two classifications – a “nuisance” or a “trespass” lawsuit, he said. Trespass, in this case, simply refers to waterway contamination, he said.
Before potentially filing a suit, Hubert wants to first figure out who should be held responsible and then examine the Santa Clara County case, he said. He does not have an expected timeline for progress.
San Benito County also recently received a $200,000 grant from the federal government to go toward drafting a plan for the mine’s cleanup. The idea to pursue civil action was spurred about five months ago during a meeting among county officials and the federal Bureau of Land Management, Hubert said.
