These images provided by the Environmental Protection Agency show the mouth of the Gold King Mine tunnel, at left, and the channeled runoff on the mine dump.
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The rate of discharge Saturday was down from about 740 gallons per minute on Friday.
“New Mexico deserves better”, state Environment Secretary Ryan Flynn said.
The agency said it hoped to have a thorough lab analysis of the contaminants, which include lead and arsenic, as soon as Saturday night.
“The most important thing is what’s in it. I need to know”, Salka told the Post.
In the meantime, the EPA said it had finished building two containment ponds to treat the yellow sludge. McGrath could not say how long. “But it’s here, we can’t turn the clock back, and there are processes now that we’re going to have to work through to fully understand the impacts and ramifications of the incident”.
The metals must naturally settle out of the water into the riverbed, McGrath said.
“We really believed it wasn’t as much water as we ended up seeing”. We’re trying to figure out what is going on and how to fix it. This is a vexing problem….
The mine has been inactive since 1923. But New Mexico officials were angry they were not told of the spill until Thursday, almost a day after the accident.
“There’s not a lot we can do”.
La Plata County director of emergency management Butch Knowlton said the sludge would be tested one way or another to protect public health.
The wastewater released contains heavy metals including lead, arsenic, cadmium, and aluminum, Ostrander said.
Governor Susana Martinez, R-NM was in Farmington Saturday afternoon to tour the damage, eyeing the pollution from a helicopter.
This morning in Farmington’s Berg Park, Phyllis Benally walked by the side of the river, thinking about the pollution washing through.
Utah’s director of water quality, Walt Baker, said residents were advised to avoid the affected rivers.
“We usually come out here in the lovely weather to fish, but no fishing today”, said McCoy, who lives in Phoenix. Both NMED and EPA are closely monitoring the situation in New Mexico.
Water continues to seep from the mine, though more slowly than during the initial spill Wednesday.
EPA officials took responsibility for what happened, saying they were sorry for the “huge tragedy”.
Oops. The party responsible for the spill is… the EPA! Officials have cautioned people to stay away from the river as they investigate the health and environmental impact of the spill.
The Animas River remains closed to all watercraft, including canoes, kayaks, paddleboards and tubes, from the San Juan County line on the north, to the Colorado-New Mexico line on the south.
An accidental wastewater spill from an abandoned mine has caused river waters in Colorado to turn yellow, extending to New Mexico and Utah. The heavy metals were making the plume travel more slowly than expected, and it was unclear how far it would reach or when it would dissipate, officials said. While the EPA was digging around, water gushed out and started to drain down.
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EPA officials on Saturday revealed data from intitial water sampling indicating pH levels reached 3.74 above Silverton in Cement Creek and 4.8 below Silverton in the Animas. Potentially impacted water systems have been notified by State officials and precautions are in place to ensure drinking water in homes is protected.
