The Mayflower Mine once produced more gold than the rest of the Park City District mines combined. After the Extell Development Company purchased the former mine site to convert it to a ski resort with luxury hotels and residences, it enrolled the site into the Utah Department of Environmental Quality (UDEQ) Voluntary Cleanup Program (VCP) and selected Barr to develop an environmental remediation strategy and an approved remedial action plan for the property.
Work needed to be completed within a short timeframe to keep the project on schedule. We collaborated with the developer’s large design team to incorporate the remedial design into the overall redevelopment plan, protecting human health and the environment without affecting the site aesthetics.
The former mine site had an unstable waste rock pile, widespread lead and arsenic in topsoil, and metals-impacted sediments within drainages and wetlands. Our design included diverting the portal drainage from the wetlands, removing the sediment, and then placing the excavated soil and sediment with waste rock in a repository with a small footprint. We worked closely with the project’s manager and soils engineer to find cost-effective onsite materials unsuitable for construction but useful for the repository.
Although remediating the site was viewed as a complex environmental project, in less than six months, Barr developed a simplified and practical remedial action plan that was approved by the Utah Department of Environmental Response and Remediation (DERR).