Governor Susana Martinez declares a state of emergency due to the 3 million gallon waste spill in the Animas River. The spill turned much of the Animas River orange in color.
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Federal authorities first suggested a treatment plant for Gold King more than a decade ago, but local officials and owners of a nearby mine were reluctant to embrace a federally sponsored cleanup.
The Gold King Mine hasn’t operated since 1923.
Absent technological breakthroughs, the EPA expects to be treating water at abandoned mines for generations.
The Gold King Mine spewed out the slurry while an EPA crew worked to clean up the site. The scientists and activists who work for the group have been concerned since the 1990s about contamination leaking from old, inactive or abandoned mines. He said more testing is needed.
Those half a million mines, Earthworks says, have produced 50 billion tons of untreated, unreclaimed mining wastes on public and private land.
But the strong dose of arsenic, cadmium, lead and other heavy metals settled as the wastewater travelled downstream, layering the bottom of the river with contaminants which will pose risks in the future.
Elsewhere, Utah officials said that contaminated water from a mine spill has likely reached Lake Powell, but the plume is no longer visible and authorities haven’t confirmed the presence of heavy metals in the waters of the reservoir. But some headgates couldn’t keep all of the heavy-metal sediment out of ditches.
In his interview, Trump stopped short of saying that McCarthy should be fired, but he said it was more proof that the EPA’s activities should be moved out of Washington and handled on the state and local level. The update reiterated that they do not expect adverse effects for people, livestock or crops but still recommend recreational users carry their own drinking water. The Durango Herald has video of his river drink.
On August 5, Environmental Protection Agency workers were trying to place a pipe into the opening of the mine to collect wastewater and prevent it from polluting Cement Creek and the Animas River. Since the pollution flowed through Durango, he has been relying on Crossfire to deliver 1,200 to 1,500 gallons of water.
The amount of polluted water spilled was triple what the EPA originally estimated. The EPA has not said the company was at fault for the breach.
Environmental Restoration LLC posted on its website in response to inquiries from the Post-Dispatch and other media confirming it was “onsite at the time of the release from the Gold King Mine”. But Colorado’s attorney general, Cynthia Coffman, said the full impact may not be understood for years. Some have toxic wastewater and need to be addressed.
“EPA is here to take responsibility, we are seeing the river restoring itself and we are working through issues to ensure that it is cleaned up”. EPA officials said they were seeking details on what the stop-work order means.
Tuesday, the EPA opened up claim submissions for the incident via Standard Form 95, which is a claim for damage, injury, or death related to environmental hazards. The Navajo Nation is attempting to negotiate modified terms of compensation with the EPA. The toxic plume affected communities in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah.
Can a state or individuals sue the EPA?
But there are other ways to consider the same data: Hydrologists usually measure by the acre-foot and acre-inch, and say 3 million gallons could cover 110 acres with an inch of contaminant-laden toxic sludge.
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As McCarthy shared updates Thursday, she was also questioned by a Farmington man who says he’s fed-up with the situation.
