City of Boulder officials have denied a request from several local organizations, including Boulder Weekly, to meet with the city archeologist and tribal monitor who are working on the Valmont Butte cleanup.

Ann Miller and her husband Douglas used to live on Valmont Road — directly across the street from the primary tailings pond dike dam at Valmont Butte that is suspected of being a pathway for the contamination that ended up in the wells north of Valmont Road over the years.

The purchase was supported by information that was either intentionally misleading or woefully incomplete. Not only was the deal brokered by a private third party, which is rare itself, but the full, sordid history of the contaminated property appears to have been hidden from city council, and perhaps certain city staff members.

It’s been 70 years since the Allied Chemical Company started storing radioactive and heavy metal contamination at Valmont Butte. And in all that time, the citizens of Boulder who have been living with the health risks and are now picking up the cleanup tab have never been given a single opportunity for a public hearing on Valmont Butte.

Considering what has transpired over the past 40 years since the city’s first involvement at the site, it seems fair to question whether the city has been either naïve in its handling of the Valmont Butte situation or has intentionally charged forward in some kind of misguided attempt to control its own destiny when it comes to cleaning up the old Allied mill site.

Several assertions have made their way into the lexicon of environmental monitoring and remediation at Valmont Butte over the years, but nobody is questioning them because it would likely cost more money to clean up the butte if the suspect information were found to be even partially wrong. How much more money? Possibly tens of millions of dollars, or even more if human health issues are involved.

When the city of Boulder buried radium-contaminated soil years ago at Allied Chemical’s Valmont Butte mill site, it carried serious ramifications. Ramifications that continue to haunt the site.

Valmont Butte timeline

Arsenic: Skin damage, circulatory system problems, increased cancer risk. Symptoms of poisoning include nausea, anorexia, vomiting, epigastric and abdominal pain, and diarrhea, in addition to dermatitis, muscle cramps, cardiac abnormalities,...

Ever since the city of Boulder purchased its Valmont Butte property, city taxpayers have been picking up the tab to pay for the environmental sins committed by more than a century’s worth of long-departed users at the site. And that tab may be getting bigger as more ghosts from the property’s past continue to reveal themselves.