An abandoned mine between Calistoga and Middletown is set to be cleaned up to prevent mercury from polluting a creek that drains into Lake Berryessa, according to the Bureau of Land Management.

BLM, which owns the Oat Hill Extension Mine site, wants to prevent mercury found in tailings from the Oat Hill Extension Mine from polluting James Creek, BLM representatives said this week. Mercury is a neurotoxin that attacks the nervous system.

The remediation work could be completed in three years, said David Lawler, BLM coordinator for the Abandoned Mine Lands Program, which oversees the cleanup of about 40 abandoned mines in the state.

BLM recently completed a study on how to treat the 500,000 tons of mine waste contaminated with mercury at the 15-acre site, a property accessible by dirt road. It is not the same as the Oat Hill Mine trail popular with hikers and mountain bikers.

The study recommended five solutions to prevent mercury from reaching James Creek. The three-mile long creek drains into Pope and Putah creeks before draining into Lake Berryessa, a water reservoir for Solano County that also serves as a recreational site to 1.5 million visitors a year.

Via Putah Creek, the water then reaches the Sacramento River and the fragile Delta system, which drains into the San Francisco Bay.

Its part of the mercury problem in the Bay, said Gary Sharpe, assistant field manager at BLMs Ukiah field office, which oversees BLM lands in Napa County.

BLM will make a final recommendation after receiving comments from other agencies and private citizens.

Allison Haines, an environmental engineer with Ecology and Environment Inc. of Boulder, Colo., the BLM consultant who did the study, has recommended consolidating the tailings at the mine, which has been closed since the 1940s, and capping the material with 12 inches of soil so that rain water will not reach the material and drain into James Creek, said Haines and BLM representatives.

This cleanup solution will cost about $3.7 million, according to the report. The project would also entail the construction of diversion ditches to drain potentially contaminated water away from the creek.

Haines recommended this over more expensive alternatives. The most expensive solution, estimated at $31.6 million, entails transporting 7,000 truckloads of tailings to a site that accepts mercury-contaminated materials.

The BLM will work on the remediation project with the Livermore Family trust, owners of a nearby ranch where tailings have also been left behind. The owners place hydromulch on steep hills near the BLM site and build water diversion trenches to prevent mercury from reaching the creek below, said ranch partner John Livermore.

Livermore said he and his family have done pollution control work on their property.

We all have to work together on this thing, said Livermore, 89, who used to come to the area as a child and remembers the Oat Hill Extension Mine when it was operating.

However, he wonders when the work will be done, given the limited budget BLM has.

Lawler, of the BLMs Abandoned Mine Lands Program, said the work would be phased over a couple of years.

James Creek is on the list of polluted river bodies that have to be cleaned under federal law, according to the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board.

Peter Morris, a senior engineer with the board, whose jurisdiction extends to sections of Napa County, said the board will have to adopt a mercury control program for the creek by 2015.