Stock Creek Natural Tunnel area Va..contaminated? (Kingsport, Sunbright: assessment, pollution)

[TNGal78]

This is possibly the wrong forum but I go there with my kids a lot and it is fairly close to Kingsport.

I have a friend who grew up near Natural Tunnel park in VA....and she played in the creek that runs through Natural Tunmel (stock creek) all the time.

She recently told me that she found out there had been a Lithium mine called Foot (Foote?) Mineral that had contaminated the creek and the mine got shut down.

She also drank from the spring as did many others and says it was later found to be contaminated. She says her relatives tell stories about way before she was born how the creek would get milky water and burn if you got it on your skin.

She says the mine was shut down and declared a 100 year dead zone and says many in that area tha drank the water and played in the creek now have cancer. Lots of her family has it.

Anybody heard of this? I know my kids played in the creek last yr at Natural Tunnel and she was like....I wouldnt touch it if I was you ! Then she told me what she had been told.
(I played in it when I would visit my friend before we knew !).

I cannot find any info on this mine or on the contamination. She says the name of the mine may have changed over the years but she rememners Foot ...and lithium.

[DubbleT]

I found a PDF file from 2006. Sorry, I don't know how to get a link to it, but this is directly from the PDF. Lots of technical stuff over my head, but basically seems to be saying that chemical pollution is not significant, however there are other problems with the creek, mostly in the form of excessive sediment.


"The Stock Creek Watershed is located in Scott County, Virginia. Stock Creek is a
tributary to the Clinch River in the Tennessee/Big Sandy River Basin. The benthic impairment
on Stock Creek extends 0.69 miles from the impoundment near the former Cyprus Foot Mineral
Company to river mile 4.53.....
Historic mining operations conducted formerly by the Cyprus Foote Mineral Corporation
and later on the same site by the Chemetall Foote Corporation Sunbright Facility caused
degradation to the benthic community of Stock Creek; both operations have since ceased. The
operations produced lithium hydroxide and extracted limestone on site. The process produced a
large amount of calcium aluminum silicate that was stockpiled on site. Studies conducted in the
1970s and 1980s confirmed that the benthic community below this site was depressed and
suspected lithium released from the facility was impacting the stream. Lithium was detected in
concentrations below acute thresholds but above the chronic thresholds from 1982 through 1984
in these studies. The last time lithium was found above the chronic concentration was in 1996.
Significant remediation work has occurred at the former Cyprus Foote Site since that time,
120,000 cubic yards of calcium aluminum silicate has been removed, the stormwater
sedimentation pond was demolished and its wastes removed and a tailings pile was removed.
These actions were conducted to halt the release of lithium and other on site materials to the
environment. As expected, an improvement in the benthic community of Stock Creek has been
observed.....

Stock Creek first was assessed as moderately impaired at station 6BSTO005.26 in the Fall of 1992. The
assessments at this monitoring station have bounced between non-impaired, slightly impaired
and moderately impaired based on the reference site from 1992 through 1998. Another
monitoring station, 6BSTO004.73, located on Stock Creek just downstream of monitoring
station 6BST005.26 was evaluated as moderately impaired from the fall of 1995 through the fall
of 1997. The last four RBP II assessments at this site, Spring and Fall 1998, Fall 2003 and
Spring 2004, were all found to be non-impaired.
Using the SCI method to evaluate the same assessment data, 6BSTO004.73 was found to
be non-impaired in the spring of 2004 and 2005....

As stated above, the biological assessments on Stock Creek were not able to discern a
clear stressor to the Creek, though historic data pointed to lithium which is no longer observed at
chronic concentrations in the water. The TMDL modelers therefore conducted a stressor
identification analysis to determine what was impacting the benthic community. Ambient water
quality data was able to rule out dissolved oxygen, temperature or pH as possible stressors to
Stock Creek. An excessive loading of sediment was seen as the cause of the benthic impairment
on Stock Creek."

Hope this helps

adding a link that may (or may not) reassure you- http://www.epa.gov/reg3hwmd/super/va.htm

[Jim37680]

I had to go hunting for this report I found some time ago (I was curious about this underground mine and surface operation since this is a limestone cave rich karst area).

The report will make some good reading for a long winter evening.

http://www.deq.virginia.gov/fileshar...ct%20Sheet.pdf

As DubbleT said, I don't think you need fear the water in Stock Creek (now anyway).

[TNGal78]

Great info! Looks like she was right on the money as this would have been the same time frame she spoke of. Good to know it isnt as bad now!

[daveatgso]

I wouldn't worry about this at all. I read the info above and it sounds like the only issues were excessive sedimentation and high pH that had an adverse effect on aquatic life. The burning skin sensation was possibly due to the excessively high pH.