ASARCO — Leadville Superfund Site

The ASARCO Leadville Superfund Site sits in one of Colorado's most storied mining communities — a town built on more than a century of silver, lead, and zinc extraction. The legacy of that industrial history created a complex regulatory and community environment: residents carried deep concerns about contamination and health impacts, and the site faced overlapping federal and state oversight requirements that demanded careful coordination across technical, legal, environmental, and corporate teams.

Sigler Communications was retained to develop and implement a community engagement and issues management program for the Leadville site. Our work included developing a comprehensive community relations plan, managing ongoing stakeholder communications, facilitating public meetings, and coordinating with regulatory agencies on public communications requirements. Sigler worked closely with ASARCO's technical consultants, legal counsel, and environmental managers to ensure that public-facing communications were accurate, consistent, and responsive to community concerns.

Through sustained engagement and transparent communications, we were able to build productive relationships with community members, elected officials, and regulatory agencies. Public meeting participation increased over the course of the program, and the cleanup process advanced with community acceptance rather than organized opposition — a meaningful result in a community with a long history of distrust toward large industrial operators.