What a difference a decade makes.

At the beginning of 2001, former copper mining lands – much of the Copper Basin area – were being considered for designation as a federal Superfund site because of the contamination. Runoff was contaminating the creeks which fed the Ocoee River with heavy metals and silt, old mining sites were laced with lead and PCBs, and plant growth was nearly impossible in many areas.

A landmark agreement in January 2001 put Glenn Springs Holdings, Inc. in charge of cleanup operations in the North Potato Creek watershed while the Environmental Protection Agency, with funding from GSH, was to conduct studies and determine needs in the Davis Mill Creek watershed.

The voluntary agreement, first worked out with GSH and the Tennessee Department of Environment, was ultimately amended and approved by EPA, thus avoiding the stigma of a Superfund site in Polk County at a time when tourism was growing. The innovative agreement was called the largest voluntary cleanup effort in the state’s history and unique to the U.S. In addition to avoiding the Superfund stigma, it also led to immediate cleanup efforts rather than the lengthy legal battles that often follow Superfund designation.

The ultimate goal of the cleanup is to restore the biological integrity of the area that had been impacted by more than 100 years of copper mining and processing and the erosion that resulted from logging for fuel for the smelters and the acid rain they produced. Improving safety was also a part of the plan, as well economic development.

Much of the history of the Copper Basin is tied to the structures and landscapes that have been reclaimed.

GSH conducted a variety of waste inventories and studies to determine the best alternatives for dealing with the wide variety of landscapes and pollution problems, then received TDEC and EPA approval before proceeding.

Nearly 90 different projects have been undertaken, with the first – artificial wetlands for treatment of acid mine drainage on McPherson Branch – taking place in 1988. Ironically, that artificial wetland, which has been expanded, has become a victim of the Glenn Springs’ success in restoring the area. Wildlife has returned, including muskrats who are damaging the wetland.

Among the most significant efforts as far as the Ocoee is concerned were wastewater treatments plants on Davis Mill Creek and North Potato Creek, the two main watersheds that drain into the Ocoee. The Ocoee cleanup began when the Cantrell Flats water treatment plant on Davis Mill Creek was refurbished in 2002 and began treating the entire creek, which receives runoff from the Intertrade property. The treatment removes about 90% of metals from the Davis Mill Creek watershed.

A lime treatment system for North Potato Creek was built in 2005. Lime is mixed with water from the creek, which feeds into the old open mine pit, where heavy metals are settled out. Operated as a surface mine from 1976-1987, the pit was turned into a lake some years ago when EPA ordered the diversion of North Potato Creek into the pit to act as a sediment trap. Water from nearby mines is also fed into the pit. This lime treatment plant has been called the world’s largest acid mine drainage treatment facility. The 20-acre pit, which is 200 feet deep, serves as a clarifier. Fresh water stays on the top, while the acidic mine water stays on the bottom. Treated water is released into Davis Mill Creek. The plant is removing 99% of the pollutant load and 100% of the acidity of the water released.

Officials say these plants are removing 98-99% of the acid-making heavy metals, once estimated at 11,000 pounds daily. A recently-approved project is designed to put a halt to pollution from sediment in several areas of the Ocoee and Parksville Lake. While the river has been safe for recreation, it did not provide a good environment for fish viability; that is now changing.

Before those treatment plants could be most effective, however, several massive projects were staged, including removing more than 350,000 cubic yards of waste material from Buena Vista roast yard, Central Shaft, Isabella, London Mill, McPherson Branch, Tailings Pond, Tennessee Mine area, Burra Burra Creek, Eureka roast yard, and the Hoist House area. Huge pipelines were installed to divert clean water such as Belltown Creek and the Gypsum Pond around polluted areas, and planting trees and grasses on hundreds of acres of barren land. The idea was to reduce the amount of metal flowing into the creeks and to have only polluted water flowing into the treatment plants.

Human health and safety concerns were included in the projects, such as filling surface openings and voids with clean fill, installing more than six miles of fencing around potentially dangerous areas, placing soil cover over areas in Isabella containing high levels of lead, removing PCB-contaminated soils in Isabella, removing asbestos-containing materials prior to demolition of abandoned mine and processing buildings, and installing underground monitors to detect any movement in the earth through subsidence.

The former processing area at London Mill received detailed analysis and treatment. The London Mill area, which once housed 100 employees, was home to the London Mine (1853-1926) and later the flotation plant that used chemicals to separate pulverized ore into the various minerals. When Tennessee Chemical Company went bankrupt, the plant was sold at auction and salvageable materials were removed.

PCB-contaminated oil and equipment were removed from the London Mill area. Most of the remaining buildings were taken down, but some pieces were left for historic interpretation. More than 200,000 cubic yards of waste material was removed for disposal in Isabella Pit or isolation, a cap was put in place and the area was seeded with grasses. A pipeline was installed to divert runoff water for treatment. In the tailings area, a liner was placed over an 11-acre site with a system to collect seepage. A diversion channel was built for clean water.

Among the other projects:

• The tailings pond outside Isabella is now a grassy area attracting wildlife rather than a sandy-looking wasteland. UT soil scientists determined the best combination of fertilizer and seeds, special plantings for wildlife were made, and lime was spread. “Tailings” -- a slurry of ground up rock particles that were left after the copper, zinc and iron were removed -- were pumped to this area of once rolling barren hills and discharged to the tune of more than a half million tons yearly. The highly porous material is now as much as 90 feet deep in some places, 40 feet in others. The area encompasses close to 300 acres. While the material is not toxic, the plantings eliminated dust emissions.

• Cleanup has been done on the old roast yards, which were used from the late 1880s to around 1904 when production of sulfuric acid began as a way of capturing the deadly fumes. Copper ore was piled into huge fires that burned for weeks, burning off the sulfur content of the ore to make it lighter for shipping. The McPherson Roast Yard, one of the largest, is now home to the McPherson wetlands, which is being used to treat runoff with natural biological processes. The Buena Vista Roast Yard, which was active from the 1860s to 1904, was also the home of the only TNT plant production area, which was built for Imperial Russia in 1916 and operated before a regime change in Russia. Mining waste was removed and the area was replanted.

• In the old Mary Mine area, which operated in the 1920s and was one of the earlier flotation plants, around 16 acres of tailings, mine rock and plant area have been covered, grassed and wildlife seedlings planted to prevent acidic seeps.

• Dams were built or heightened as part of the effort to divert runoff or to control storm water.

• In the former Apache Blast area, slag was removed and the area was capped and revegetated.

• Glenn Springs Holdings has planted hundreds of thousands of trees and hundreds of acres of grass. The long-term plan calls for developing trails and interpretive areas. The land is currently held in trust and will be donated to the Ducktown Basin Museum.

Glenn Springs Holdings Inc. was created in the early 1990s to manage the environmental remediation of properties once held by Occidental Petroleum and the lands held by other companies later acquired by Occidental, as is the case in the Basin. In the 1980s, Occidental purchased Cities Service, which had sold its Copper Basin operation to Tennessee Chemical Company. TCC went bankrupt in 1989. Because of its former ownership of Cities Service, Occidental Petroleum was the only viable entity remaining with ties to the site and was identified by EPA as potentially having responsibility even though it didn’t own any of the land and its ownership of Cities Service came after mining and processing operations were sold to TCC. The Copper Basin Project focuses primarily on the thousands of acres that were abandoned by the bankruptcy of Tennessee Chemical Company. The Intertrade property is not included; cleanup there was part of a 1990 agreement that made it feasible for Boliden to purchase the plant from bankruptcy.