People kayak in the Animas River near Durango, Colo., Thursday, Aug. 6, 2015, in water colored from a mine waste spill.
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency selects sites for clean-up. That sent millions of gallons of mine wastewater streaming into the Animas River.
Environmental and tribal activists welcomed the government’s announcement Wednesday that it had designated the Gold King Mine a Superfund site, advancing the cleanup of an area contaminated by a multimillion-gallon toxic spill past year.
The EPA said Wednesday adding the Argonaut Mine, in the town of Jackson, to the Superfund program’s National Priorities List releases federal funds to begin full-scale efforts to decontaminate the 65-acre area west of Highway 49.
Another groundwater contamination site in IN has also been added to the Superfund list.
But when the EPA accidentally triggered a 3-million-gallon wastewater spill from the Gold King Mine in August 2015, contaminating rivers in three states, public opinion shifted. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates about 880,000 pounds of metals poured into a river in Colorado; metals like arsenic, lead, and mercury.
Interior officials said they found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing.
“Listing the Bonita Peak Mining District on the National Priorities List is an important step that enables EPA to secure the necessary resources to investigate and address contamination concerns of San Juan and La Plata Counties, as well as other downstream communities in New Mexico, Utah, and the Navajo Nation”, said Shaun McGrath, EPA’s Regional Administrator. “I don’t think we see Superfund as being a hindrance to that”, he said.
A separate criminal investigation is still underway, along with an internal inquiry.
The EPA will then study different cleanup methods, choose a preferred option and ask for public comment. Today’s action means permanent cleanup can start.
“In the past year, my team and I have worked to hold the EPA accountable”, Tipton said in a statement.
“The country hasn’t made much progress on fixing abandoned mines across the West”.
Congress has conducted multiple hearings on the spill and is considering several bills to address hundreds of old, leaking mines nationwide.
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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.
