Mayflower Mill Tailing Ponds

Mayflower Mill Tailing Ponds. . , What are Tailings? , In the Silverton region, ore generally contained. only about 5% valuable metals, typically a mixture of lead, zinc, copper, silver, and gold. Most mines sent their ore to a nearby processing plant, known as a mill, which crushed the rock into fine particles and then separated the metal by floating it to the surface in specially designed tanks. On its way through the mill, each ton of ore yielded a small amount of metal and a large amount of wet, sand-like material called tailings., The Mayflower Mill Tailings Ponds , When the Mayflower Mill began operation just up the road from this site in 1930, the mining industry customarily disposed of its tailings by dumping them into the nearest river. But the Mayflower's superintendent and part owner, Charles A. Chase, took an unusual stand: "Because of my personal repugnance for the lack of consideration of the public interest involved in this practice, I undertook to withhold from the Animas River the tailings of our new project.", Borrowing some techniques and inventing others, Chase in 1935 created a successful, on-land disposal system that impounded wet mill tailings in dam-like structures known as tailings ponds. After the ponds dried out, the tailings were left high above the river in the shape of tall, sandy mounds. As the mining industry became more environmentally conscious, impoundment became a standard tailings disposal technique., The two mounds directly before you are remnants of Chase's pioneering work of the 1930s and 1940s. Among the earliest engineered tailings ponds in the Rocky Mountain mining districts, they make this locale a significant historic site for both the American environmental movement and the country's mining industry., Captions , 1. The Mayflower Mill, c. 1940. The tailings ponds (center background) were located downhill from the mill to allow gravity disposal of the tailings. , (Charles A. Chase Photo, Courtesy of San Juan County Historical Society) , 2. Tailings Pond No. 1, c. 1940. , (Charles A. Chase Photo, Courtesy of San Juan County Historical Society) , 3. Tailings Pond No.1 in its early stages, c. 1935. The wooden flume deposited wet tailings from the Mayflower Mill. As the solids settled out, the tailings grew into a sandy mound. , (Charles A. Chase Photo, Courtesy of San Juan County Historical Society)