Navajo president: EPA says spill cleanup could take decades

The worries stem from the farmland that uses river water for irrigation, and the communication barriers that may be keeping some members of the Navajo community uninformed of the contamination. The plume is now headed to Lake Powell, one of the major reservoirs on the Colorado River. The lower stretch of the river serves parts of California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah.

Local officials expressed frustration that the leak was caused by the EPA, the federal agency tasked with protecting the environment.

The less visible-and long-term-consequences of the spill, however, are unknown, according to state and EPA officials.

Yazzie said the EPA didn’t alert them about the spill until 24 hours after the incident.

During a visit to the Animas River in Durango, downstream from the spill, Hickenlooper said tremendous progress has already been made. “We would hope that they would be cautious and recognize how a river is such a lifeblood to these people down here”.

At the Gold King Mine, Begaye, president of the Navajo Nation, couldn’t help but see the concerned faces of his people – the farmers who can’t water their corn now, and the ranchers scrambling to keep their cattle, sheep and goats away from the polluted San Juan River.

The orange sludge flowed from the Animas River in Colorado into New Mexico, where it met and started following the San Juan River, a key source of water for Navajo communities.

“My message to folks who are angry is we are working as hard as we can and we know it’s a difficult situation”, she added. In response to the “unfortunate accident”, McCarthy said the EPA has developed and “deployed the full depth and breadth of the agency, as well as partners on the ground”.

Contaminated waters now contain high levels of arsenic, lead, and other heavy metals.

McCarthy’s media availability was announced Wednesday morning and is set for the same time as the three attorneys general were slated to speak at a previously scheduled news conference at a different location. Tues. marks the 1st day people affected by the spill can file claims with the Environmental Safety Agency. The waste water had backed up inside of the mine, threatening to overflow and pour into the river, and the EPA planned to drain it with a pipe and then seal the mine to keep the waste contained more permanently.

A jar of water from a ditch is brought in for testing at San Juan County’s Lee Acres Sheriff’s substation in Farmington, N.M., on Monday, August 10, 2015.

The EPA released a statement saying it was sharing information as quickly as possible with the public as its experts evaluate any effects of the spill.

There is good news – believe it or not – bad news and, most significant, revealing news seeping out along with the acidic heavy metals flooding into the Animas River basin this week.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife broadcast video Tuesday of fingerling rainbow trout introduced in the Animas River just before the big plume of contaminated water hit Thursday. This should include a system for state, tribal, county, and city officials to seek reimbursement for expenditures they have incurred as the result of the toxic release. The state’s environmental department also got another $500,000 in emergency funds.

The Navajo Nation EPA surface water monitoring program collected water and sediment samples from the San Juan River before the spill was expected to reach it.