At Monte Cristo ghost town, a big fight over a short road
MONTE CRISTO — One side wants to preserve history.
The other, nature.
Historic preservationists and environmentalists are locking horns over a mile or so of temporary access road leading to a ghost town well east of Granite Falls.
It’s called the CERCLA road, named for the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act. And it lies beyond a gate about a half-mile past the main trailhead for Monte Cristo.
The route was built so crews could access the mining sites near Monte Cristo, to clean up old and rather toxic tailings — the crud leftover after all the valuables have been sifted out. The tailings here had high concentrations of arsenic and lead, found naturally in the same rocks where miners once searched for gold and silver in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
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Looking at a map, the CERCLA route is on the outer edge of what is supposed to be a designated roadless area.
https://www.heraldnet.com/news/at-monte-cristo-ghost-town-a-big-fight-over-a-short-road/