Tour the Bonita Peak Superfund site’s Gold King Water Treatment Plant and Mayflower Tailings Repository in Silverton, Colorado.  This tour will look at the entire process of how the Gold King Mine drainage is treated and how the treatment plant sludge is collected, transported, and placed into the Mayflower Tailings Repository for long term storage. Transportation in shared 14-passenger vans.

Tour the Rico Argentine Mine site and the St. Louis Tunnel mine drainage in Rico, Colorado.  This tour will look at Enhanced Constructed Wetland Treatment System design for mine drainage treatment.  Innovative passive treatment systems have been tested at this site from demonstration through pilot scale. Transportation in shared 14-passenger vans.

Tour into the heart of the La Plata Mountains with Metallic Minerals’ exploration team.  Explore the geology of the ore deposit and discuss with local experts the geologic history that created this stunning mountain range.  Transportation in private high-clearance 4WD/AWD vehicles; carpooling strongly encouraged.

Tour the San Juan County Historical Society Mining Heritage Center and the Mayflower Gold Mill Tour. The Mining Heritage Center is one of the top mining museums in the United States and the Mayflower Gold Mill Tour is a unique peek into how mills operated, showing all the steps from crushing through flotation processes used in the past.  Stand inside the tram terminal where the Mayflower Tram Towers and buckets still hang in the air. Transportation in private vehicles, carpooling encouraged.

Go underground and tour the Old Hundred Gold Mine on a vintage electric mine train with a short walk, and see real mining equipment in action to learn the current and historic mining processes. Then, shift to modern day and take a short drive up Cunningham Gulch to see beaver restoration projects being implemented by the Bureau of Land Management. Transportation in shared 14-passenger vans.

Visit springs and seeps from the Gladstone area to the mouth of the North Fork of Cement Creek.  USGS will lead a discussion on geochemistry, groundwater age, and resulting interpretations of flow paths in the area and implications for stream water chemistry.