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.
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Federal regulators have designated the Gold King Mine, the source of a major waste spill in Colorado past year, a Superfund site.
The EPA put nine other sites around the country on its Superfund list Wednesday, the agency announced.
Sites in California, Indiana, Louisiana, Montana, New York, Ohio, Puerto Rico, Texas and West Virginia also were added to the Superfund list Wednesday, the Associated Press reports.
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 EPA estimates that 880,000 pounds of metals flowed into the Animas River in Colorado, including arsenic, cadmium, copper, lead, mercury, nickel and zinc.
“In the past year, my team and I have worked to hold the EPA accountable”, Tipton said in a statement.
Acting New Mexico Environment Secretary Butch Tongate said his state and other downstream jurisdictions were excluded from some of the Superfund planning.
Interior officials said they found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing.
Fixes could include water treatment plants for acidic waste draining from the site, plugging abandoned mines that are leaking and moving mine waste piles away from streams, Thomas said. Now that the mine has been formally added to the list, EPA will begin a comprehensive investigation at the site, and will seek public input prior to selecting a cleanup plan.
Officials say it could take years, or even decades to complete the clean up.
Sandy Bahr, the director of the Grand Canyon chapter of the Sierra Club, said the EPA’s recent classification of Gold King as a Superfund site was “something that a lot of people have been advocating for for some time”.
Congress has conducted multiple hearings.
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“Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye asked for a designation of the Superfund site for the waters that are directly upstream from the Navajo Nation a few months ago, so it’s good to see action and it’s good to see movement on that”, Brossy said.
