When it was operational, the Gold King Mine produced not only gold, but also lead, zinc, silver and copper, according to John Ridley, a geoscience professor at Colorado State University who has studied mines in the Silverton area and takes students there every summer.
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From there, it flowed into the San Juan River, a Colorado tributary that winds through northwestern New Mexico into Utah and ultimately joins Lake Powell.
“These are simple questions with simple answers that they undoubtedly have at their fingertips”. But our water is scarce, so we know not to put our limited water resources at risk.
“Forget about what happened during the spill”.
“I think we need to be concerned about this”, he said. The EPA had pushed for a Superfund designation of the upper river basin, but entities like the Animas River Stakeholders Group opposed those efforts. But Utah’s agriculture agency is still warning farmers against using San Juan River water until tests are more conclusive.
The Gold King mine that polluted the Animas is one of some 500,000 abandoned mines pocking the landscape of the American West, some 23,000 in Colorado alone.
The EPA says the McCarthy will speak to the media at 2 p.m.in Durango outside of a command post set up in the wastewater spill’s aftermath.
The New Mexico Game and Fish Department is also monitoring conditions for animals that live in and around the river.
Officials in Colorado have reopened the Animas River to boating after 3 million gallons of contaminated wastewater laced with heavy metals spilled into the popular waterway.
“We will not step aside while the EPA, through heavy-handed federal overreach, threatens to upend a system that the EPA has approved multiple times and has provided a consistent, reliable framework to safely provide electricity to millions of Floridians across the state; furthermore, the agency’s action could result in higher utility bills for Florida consumers”, Ms. Bondi said.
Apparently having some animus about the Animas River stunt, the top environmental official of neighboring New Mexico criticized Hickenlooper for grandstanding and, by extension, jeopardizing public health before all the data on the spill is in.
The troubling thing about circumstances surrounding the Gold King Mine, and the dumping of orange, iron-laden waste into the Animas River, is that the mine, out of commission since 1923, was in the environmental-mitigation process.
McCarthy pledged a thorough review of the EPA’s role in the disaster, but said her current focus is on properly managing the response.
“Sediment is just one indicator of a healthy river, and there is some level of contamination in most Colorado rivers because of past mining activities and the geology of the state”, the agency added.
Tipton said whenever a private company causes environmental damage through a mine spill, the EPA scrutinizes the company through its criminal investigations division.
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If past cases of government malfeasance are any guide, those most intimately tied to the spill may receive raises or promotions, either to reward them for surreptitiously accomplishing EPA’s underlying goal of garnering millions for future mine clean-ups, as suggested by Taylor, or to keep them quiet about any such plan.
