Thirteen months after an Environmental Protection Agency mistake sent millions of gallons of bright orange wastewater into a Colorado river, the agency has declared the Gold King Mine and 47 other locations in the region Superfund sites, Colorado Public Radio reports. This week the EPA declared the mine a Superfund priority, along with dozens of other nearby sites (collectively dubbed the Bonita Peak Mining District, for purposes of the Superfund application) paving the way for the resources to do long-needed remediation.
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Colorado has identified heavy metal issues in the Animas River since 1998, the agency said, and 32 sites in Bonita Peak produce up to 5.4 million gallons of mining waste a day. Flowing downstream from the mine in scenic Silverton, Colorado, at an elevation of 9,300 feet, the hazardous flow also contaminated the San Juan River in New Mexico and caused the Navajo Nation to declare a state of emergency.
“In the past year, my team and I have worked to hold the EPA accountable”, Tipton said in a statement.
The cleanup will be complex and could take years or even decades.
A separate criminal investigation is still underway, along with an internal inquiry.
Congress has conducted multiple hearings on the spill and is considering several bills to address hundreds of old, leaking mines nationwide.
Authorities will first gather data including water and sediment samples and assessments of fish and wildlife habitat and other information.
The EPA will then study different cleanup methods, choose a preferred option and ask for public comment. “I am hopeful that with this designation, the EPA will continue to collaborate with local, tribal, and state officials and work to protect the local economy, maximizing local employment opportunities where possible and providing adequate funding to ensure the cleanup begins as quickly as possible”.
Some residents resisted a Superfund designation, anxious it would hurt the vital tourism industry.
Currently, more than 1,300 sites are on the EPA’s Superfund National Priorities List.
“I think we’re all in for one heck of an adventure”, said Mark Esper, editor of the Silverton Standard newspaper.
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The Colorado cleanup might also improve the town’s finances, which have been in decline since a mine and mill closed in 1991, Esper said. “I don’t think we see Superfund as being a hindrance to that”, he said.
