The problem of the old Gold King Mine took center stage after Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) workers accidentally opened a passage releasing 3 million gallons of metal-laden toxic sludge into the watershed. Water that continues to flow from the mine is being directed into a series of cleansing ponds. I can assure you that I would not have gotten away with an “I’m sorry” if my company had been responsible for a spill of this magnitude.
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About a week after the spill, the EPA praised the seemingly mystical way the river was “restoring itself” and said the Animas River was back to what it was before they began their work. “This gutless and incompetent agency must be held accountable for releasing 3 million gallons of toxic waste into our rivers”.
The EPA said in recent days that poisons including lead and thallium have been detected in river sediment samples collected from the Animas River, which travels from Colorado into northern New Mexico, joining the San Juan River before emptying into Utah’s Lake Powell.
Hundreds of Navajos farm along the San Juan River grow squash, melons, corn and other crops to sustain their families and to sell at roadside stands and a tribal fair in October in Shiprock.
A U.S. Senate committee will hold hearings on the spill’s impact on the Navajo Nation C8.
Water flows through a series of retention ponds built to contain and filter out heavy metals and chemicals from the Gold King mine wastewater…
Meanwhile, restrictions along the San Juan River remain in effect on the Navajo Nation. That means EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy may be questioned.
River advocate Dave Wuchert of Dolores said Silverton “had to know those mines would fill up (with water)”. The EPA has accepted full esponsibility.
The review was announced late Tuesday after elected officials from both parties questioned whether the Environmental Protection Agency should be left to probe its own heavily criticized response to the disaster. But the study concedes that it can not be precise in its cost estimates, because there is little precedent for the EPA to rely upon to inform a direct assessment of the clean up.
The spill caused five New Mexico water systems, including those of Farmington and Aztec, to temporarily stop pumping water from the river, forcing them to rely instead on water storage reserves. After the EPA spill, governors of those states declared emergencies.
If past cases of government malfeasance are any guide, those most intimately tied to the spill may receive raises or promotions, either to reward them for surreptitiously accomplishing EPA’s underlying goal of garnering millions for future mine clean-ups, as suggested by Taylor, or to keep them quiet about any such plan.
Congress could also make it easier for local governments, conservation groups and others to launch their own cleanup efforts by amending the law governing such operations.
“New Mexicans deserve answers as to why this catastrophe happened and why the EPA failed to notify us in a timely manner”, the governor said in a statement.
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The review’s goal is to provide the EPA an analysis of the incident and any contributing causes, according to an EPA press release.
