Ben Carson visiting Colorado to see mine that spilled waste

The toxic waste from the Gold King Mine in Southern Colorado, which sparked this disaster, flowed through the Animas into the San Juan last week and is making its way past the Navajo Nation. “We are optimistic that you will pursue legislation to begin rectifying what the EPA has done and to reassure residents along the San Juan River that the federal government will accept full responsibility for the spill and take measures to ensure that it never happens again”. Utah also has given the OK for San Juan River to be used for crops and livestock.

The states of Colorado and New Mexico declared the area a disaster scene.

The EPA said it needed to inspect the mining area because “experience” at other sites sometimes revealed soil contamination, according to a March report in the Silverton Standard.

It’s outrageous that crews working for the federal Environmental Protection Agency carelessly unleashed 3 million gallons of toxic sludge from an abandoned mine last week in Colorado.

The EPA failed to respond to any of the questions by its Monday evening deadline, a move Dave Taylor deemed troublesome.

“Kinross Gold Corp. [owner of the Sunnyside] is a rogue mining company”, said Todd Hennis, who owns the Gold King Mine and blames Sunnyside for the accumulation of water.

Heavy metals, such as the kind that are now in the sediment of the Animas river, are hugely expensive to clean up. “I don’t have a complete understanding of anything that went on in there”.

“We’re looking at normal operations, our water supply is in great shape”, Ray said. Community members raised concerns regarding reimbursement claim Form 95, data availability, water availability for livestock, agriculture and human consumption, and short and long-term health impacts from river exposure. Some who didn’t get word ended up in the hospital from using the contaminated water.

Citing an ongoing Department of the Interior investigation, EPA workers are delaying the release of some details about what precisely caused the Gold King Mine spill.

“We didn’t want a Superfund because it is not super funded”, said Bill Simon, co-founder of the Animas River Stakeholders Group. They’re connected to the water. “I want to make sure the Environmental Protection Agency is here and attentive to that when people need them”, said Coffman.

The rivers are open again in New Mexico and Colorado, though not on the Navajo Nation.

“The Feds are protecting themselves at the expense of the Navajo people and it is outrageous”, said President Begaye in a statement.

Wheeling says they are taking it slowly when it comes to returning to using the river for irrigation purposes and will be looking for a variety of indicators before they do.

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.

For a tribe of roughly 300,000 that officials say has an unemployment rate of about 50 percent and an average income of $12,000, the calamity is pushing people toward the brink.

This article was written by JOSHUA KELLOGG from The Daily Times, Farmington, N.M. and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.