After 16+ years, Dewey Humbolt may finally get a toxic mine and smelter site cleaned up

DEWEY-HUMBOLT, Ariz. (AZFamily) — It’s been a Superfund site for 16 years, and people continue to get sick and die. Yet it still hasn’t been cleaned up.

Arizona’s Family Investigates has been following Dewey Humboldt’s fight to address the former mine and separate smelter sites.

“Shortly after moving here, she started getting really sick,” Ashley Preston said.

Preston is talking about her daughter, who was three years old when she moved to the town east of Prescott in 2005.

“I noticed every time the dust was coming off the smelter my daughter was having these attacks, and we would end up in the hospital,” she explained.

Preston lived right across the road from the former Humboldt Smelter. Mining and smelting date back to the 1870′s on the massive site before Arizona was even a state.

Smelting is the process of applying heat and chemicals to rock to extract metal, in this case, copper. It leaves behind waste full of toxic chemicals.

“I started digging into that and found a correlation between beryllium in the dust and had my daughter tested at that point and had my daughter tested, and beryllium was found in her blood,” Preston said.

Beryllium can cause breathing problems. After talking to neighbors, she realized her daughter wasn’t alone.

“It just became evident to me that I was hearing a lot of people with cancer,” Preston said.

It’s not just from the old smelter; the town is also home to the former Iron King Mine. The site produced lead, zinc, copper, gold, and silver. It left behind huge piles of waste, which contained high levels of lead and arsenic. But no widespread testing had been done.

Preston worked with three other longtime neighbors to start tracking where people lived and what conditions they were suffering from.

They paid special attention to teachers at Humboldt Elementary who had passed away from cancer.

“The most contaminated areas in town were the old railroad tracks right through here,” Preston explained.

Railroad tracks ran behind the school. The Environmental Protection Agency said the contamination results from spills at rail loading areas and that they’ve tried to clean them up.

The wind blows dust from the sites. There’s also concern about toxic chemicals in the groundwater.

It led the mine and smelter to be added to the Superfund National Priorities List 2008.

But change is coming. In 2022, the EPA said Dewey-Humboldt had been selected for remediation. Following public meetings and a comment period, the EPA announced its plan: creating two repositories, one on each site. All mine waste and contaminated soil will be moved and held in them. According to the EPA, they’re in the design phase.

The second component is cleaning up individual properties.

“It’s despicable that this has been going on for so long,” a homeowner told council members.

Dozens filled the town hall back in February for an update.

“Do I expect something to be done? Yes, I do,” another homeowner told council members.

Homeowners must agree to let the EPA test their property for contamination, but some are skeptical.

“I don’t trust the EPA at all. Let’s get real 15, 16-year saga going on,” Bruce Woodhall, a homeowner said.

Arizona’s Family Investigates asked the EPA about all the people who are sick and dying and why it’s taking this long.

“We wish that it could be quicker too,” Michelle Rogow with the EPA’s Superfund Program said.

She said this cleanup would cost more than $100 million. An EPA spokesman said they’d spent more than $40 million between 2002 and 2024.

She said their plan will include testing and removing all contaminated soil from people’s property.

Rogow explained each property owner would get their results in a report.

Homeowners said to date, it hadn’t happened.

“This is our opportunity to clean up this community in a comprehensive manner,” Rogow said.

The 4,300 people who call Dewey-Humboldt home are hoping that happens, too.

“It’s not only a failure by the owners but the agencies involved as well,” Rogow said.

The Arizona Cancer Registry explained that during a February presentation to the town, they found statistically higher rates for lung and bladder cancer. However, the data wasn’t complete because of the small sample size and the problems with the modeling.

Rogow said they plan to begin cleaning up residential properties in early 2025.

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