Animas River fouled by 1 million gallons of contaminated mine water

[Valin]

DEnver Post:

EPA accidently releases water; Durango residents warned to cut back on water use as health officials evaluate river

Jesse Paul and Bruce Finley

08/07/2015

 

DURANGO — A spill that sent 1 million gallons of wastewater from an abandoned mine into the Animas River, turning the river orange, set off warnings Thursday that contaminants threaten water quality for those downstream.

 

The Environmental Protection Agency confirmed it triggered the spill while using heavy machinery to investigate pollutants at the Gold King Mine, north of Silverton.

 

Health and environmental officials are evaluating the river as it flows through San Juan and La Plata counties. They said the wastewater contained zinc, iron, copper and other heavy metals, prompting the EPA to warn agricultural users to shut off water intakes along the river and law officials to close the river to recreational users.

 

(Snip)

 

 

[clearvision]

The EPA you say did it? The same EPA that is trying to destroy the US economy by declaring CO2 a pollutant to, as they all ready agree, have no real impact on hyped climate change. Not surprised.

[clearvision]

@Valin

 

"The agency has placed cages with fish in the river to see how they react to the waters. Officials say they should know Friday whether there were any effects."

 

Now wait just a minute. They are putting Freddie and Frita the fishes purposely in cages to see if they die? Glad Cecil is not around for this.

[KWARX]

Just crossed the river after supper at REAL TEXAS BAR-B-Q . . . It looked to be normal color. I don't know if that means the pollution has already passed or not arrived yet.

[clearvision]

Just crossed the river after supper at REAL TEXAS BAR-B-Q . . . It looked to be normal color. I don't know if that means the pollution has already passed or not arrived yet.

Howdy there Partner, but there ain't no REAL TEXAS BAR-B-Q outside of the mother state....

@Draggingtree @NCTexan

[Draggingtree]

Saturday, August 8, 2015

What Would Happen If "You" or "Your" Company Dumped A Million Gallons Of Toxic Waste Into A River?

Probably this:

DURANGO — A spill that sent 1 million gallons of wastewater from an abandoned mine into the Animas River, turning the river orange, set off warnings Thursday that contaminants threaten water quality for those downstream.
The Environmental Protection Agency confirmed it triggered the spill while using heavy machinery to investigate pollutants at the Gold King Mine, .

[Valin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfA0Ldobrf4

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjVKmzXQFxY

 

So a small question...Who will be fired for this?

[Valin]

Someone else is asking my small question

 

The EPA and the Animas River Disaster – Will anyone at the EPA get fired?
Tuesday, August 11, 2015 12:08

 

Will anyone at the EPA get fired? No. Government blunders, corruption, and even crime has not been held truly accountable since I cannot even remember when… apparently untouchable.

 

In this particular instance, the Environmental Protection Agency (the one that might be better named The Employment Prevention Agency — filled with countless and unaccountable militant bureaucrats who seemingly aim to hinder, disrupt, regulate and terminate as much American business, personal property rights and individual liberty as possible) has apparently unleashed a seemingly epic environmental disaster on the Animas River which is spreading further as toxic sludge gushes forth…

 

 

(Snip)

 

The question is, where will this EPA toxic mess flow to next? All water flows downhill… look out below…

A few thoughts:

“It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”

~Thomas Sowell

 

“If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there would be a shortage of sand.”

~ Milton Friedman

 

(Snip)

[SrWoodchuck]

Letter to the Editor of the Silverton Standard (Pre-spill):

http://theferalirishman.blogspot.com/2015/08/in-regard-to-3-million-gallon-toxic.html

 

 

 

 

Via TheFeralIrishman

[clearvision]

Letter to the Editor of the Silverton Standard (Pre-spill):

http://theferalirishman.blogspot.com/2015/08/in-regard-to-3-million-gallon-toxic.html

 

 

 

 

Via TheFeralIrishman

Wow! That is so bad.

[Valin]

@SrWoodchuck @clearvision

 

I'd like to say I'm shocked, I really would like to...but I can't.

 

Good catch SrWoodchuck.

[Valin]

H/T Real James Woods

[Valin]

The real culprit in the Animas River spill

Lauren Pagel

Updated 12:46 PM ET, Wed August 12, 2015

Edtitor's Note: Lauren Pagel is the policy director at Earthworks, a national nonprofit advocacy organization focused on protecting communities and the environment from the adverse impacts of mining. The opinions expressed in this commentary are hers.

 

(CNN)Last Wednesday, the United States experienced one of its worst hardrock-mining-related disasters in decades, and I wish I could say that I was surprised.

 

A gold mine that has been inactive since 1920 spilled 3 million gallons of toxic mining waste into the Animas River in Colorado after contractors working for an Environmental Protection Agency cleanup team using heavy equipment accidentally sent it flowing into the waterway. The spill has spread from Colorado into New Mexico and now into Utah -- affecting over 100 river miles.

 

(Snip)

 

If there is anything I have learned from the past 15 years of working on this issue, it's that absent strong regulations and better-designed mines, mining companies will continue to pollute with impunity.

 

(Snip)

 

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

GIVE ME A BREAK

[Valin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg9rENu0Dfo

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Government agency speak with forked tongue:

Navajos say EPA should clean its spill rather than trying to swindle Indians

 

Environmental Protection Agency officials were going door to door asking Navajos, some of whom don’t speak English as their primary language, to sign a form that offers to pay damages incurred so far from the spill, but waiving the right to come back and ask for more if their costs escalate or if they discover bigger problems, Navajo President Russell Begaye told The Washington Times.

“It is underhanded. They’re just trying to protect their pocketbook,” Mr. Begaye said in a telephone interview.

[Valin]

gives a presser.......Blah Blah Blah Blah..Blah Blah.

[Valin]

Navajo president urges members to avoid EPA form

DURANGO, Colo. (AP) - The latest in the Colorado mine spill (all times local):

 

DURANGO, Colo. (AP) - The latest in the Colorado mine spill (all times local):

 

12:05 p.m.

 

The president of the Navajo Nation is advising tribal members not to submit claims for federal reimbursement for the Colorado mine spill.

 

President Russell Begaye says doing so means Navajos waive any future claim for injuries. Tribal ranchers have had to move their livestock away from the polluted San Juan River, and farmers worry their crops will suffer. Begaye says Navajo elders also might not know what they're signing.

 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has taken responsibility for its crew accidentally unleashing 3 million gallons of wastewater last week that flowed downstream to New Mexico and Utah. The agency says the form must be submitted within two years of the discovery of the claim.

 

Begaye says the EPA has distributed claim forms at public hearings across the Navajo Resercation and urged tribal members to sign them.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

Play Spot The Spin...win valuable prizes.

 

EPA test results reveal Colorado spill's toxic stew as thousands of other abandoned mines leak

MATTHEW BROWN, MICHAEL BIESECKER and P. SOLOMON BANDA Associated Press
August 13, 2015

 

SILVERTON, Colorado — It will take many years and many millions of dollars simply to manage and not even remove the toxic wastewater from an abandoned mine that unleashed a 100-mile-long torrent of heavy metals into Western rivers, experts said Thursday.

 

Plugging Colorado's Gold King Mine could simply lead to an eventual explosion of poisonous water elsewhere, so the safest solution, they say, would be to install a treatment plant that would indefinitely clean the water from Gold King and three other nearby mines. It would cost millions of dollars, and do nothing to contain the thousands of other toxic streams that are a permanent legacy of mining across the nation.

 

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.

 

"They have been not pursuing the obvious solution," said Rob Robinson, a retired abandoned mines cleanup coordinator for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. "My hope is this has embarrassed the hell out of them and they're going to finally take it seriously."

 

(Snip)

 

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, who took full responsibility and promised that the agency will pay for any damage, said Thursday that these results show the river is "restoring itself." She also announced that the EPA has released $500,000 to help supply clean water for crop irrigation and livestock in northwestern New Mexico.

 

Absent technological breakthroughs, the EPA expects to be treating water at abandoned mines for generations.

 

"Mine sites continually produce more waste," said John Hillenbrand, remedial project manager with the EPA's Superfund program in California.

 

(Snip)

 

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

What I fine a little interesting is so far there has been no call for someone...anyone...a janitor at the local EPA get their ass fired.

 

$500,000 that's a joke...and not a very good one.

[clearvision]

@Valin

 

Here is the trail starting.... not really EPA staff doing the actual digging...

 

http://dailycaller.com/2015/08/12/epa-contractor-behind-co-mine-spill-got-381-million-from-taxpayer/

The EPA may have been trying to hide the identity of the contracting company responsible for causing a major wastewater spill in southern Colorado, but the Wall Street Journal has revealed the company’s identity.

 

Environmental Restoration (ER) LLC, a Missouri-based firm, was the “contractor whose work caused a mine spill in Colorado that released an estimated 3 million gallons of toxic sludge into a major river system,” the WSJ was told by a source familiar with the matter. The paper also found government documents to corroborate what their source told them.

 

[Valin]

 

@Valin

 

Here is the trail starting.... not really EPA staff doing the actual digging...

 

http://dailycaller.com/2015/08/12/epa-contractor-behind-co-mine-spill-got-381-million-from-taxpayer/

The EPA may have been trying to hide the identity of the contracting company responsible for causing a major wastewater spill in southern Colorado, but the Wall Street Journal has revealed the company’s identity.

 

Environmental Restoration (ER) LLC, a Missouri-based firm, was the “contractor whose work caused a mine spill in Colorado that released an estimated 3 million gallons of toxic sludge into a major river system,” the WSJ was told by a source familiar with the matter. The paper also found government documents to corroborate what their source told them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The EPA has taken responsibility for the spill and has officials on the ground working with local officials to remedy the situation. Still, local officials and Native Americans are furious with the EPA over the spill, and have not ruled out legal action to make sure the agency remains accountable.

 

I hope someone high up gets taken to the woodshed.....but I'm not going to hold my breath.

 

I'm also thing Exon Valdez.

[Valin]

Readers React Don't trust the EPA on the Animas River spill

 

To the editor: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's words of reassurance and comfort after the Colorado mine spill into the Animas and San Juan rivers should not be trusted. Those placating words do not have the historical ring of truth. ("States downstream from contaminated river upset that EPA didn't alert them," Aug. 11)

 

I've long noticed that in the wake of any accidental spill or contamination — be it British Petroleum oil in the Gulf of Mexico or the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan — authorities, at least initially, downplay the danger and potential long-lasting damage from the accident.

 

We are predictably told not to worry our pretty little heads about the seriousness of the contamination. It's only later that the appalling truth becomes apparent: that the toxic slop left behind is, in fact, a major problem, cleanup costs continue to skyrocket and formerly life-giving water becomes life-taking water devoid of aquatic life and a danger to all.

 

Linda Nicholes, Huntington Beach