River in Colorado reopens as toxic plume reaches Lake Powell

It’s important to note that, especially in rural areas, drinking water from wells contains naturally-occurring levels of these elements. EPA administrator Gina McCarthy has taken full responsibility and promised that the agency will pay for any damage.

Still, the state Department of Environmental Protection deemed mine drainage enough of a problem to set total maximum daily loads, sometimes called pollution diets, for metals in the Lackawanna and Susquehanna in the mid-2000s. Once EPA sediment data is validated, it will be posted online at: http://www2.epa.gov/goldkingmine. “The Obama administration must do everything in its power to protect the lives and livelihoods of the people in the affected states”. Water intakes from the Animas also have been shut down for the New Mexico towns of Aztec and Farmington. And Attorney General Sean Reyes is talking about legal action.

“With this rule, the EPAis attempting to transform itself from an environmental regulator to a central planning agency for states’ energy economies”. Things went awry when loose material that plugged the mine gave way, causing an outpouring of water that contained high levels of iron, zinc, lead, arsenic, and more. But the nonprofit Water Defense has found heavy metals including vanadium, titanium and barium in its samples.

Tainted water from the Gold King Mine spill in a temporary containment pond near the site of the spill.

But some native fish, like the razorback sucker, are re-populating, and there are fears the recovery could be in danger because of the contaminants.

“The 1872 Law’s legacy includes 550,000 abandoned and inactive mines; 10,000 miles of degraded rivers and streams; hundreds of polluted lakes and reservoirs; and, more than 50 Superfund sites”, reports the Center for Environmental Equity.

Officials in northwestern New Mexico have lifted the precautionary ban on the use of private well water throughout the Animas River valley after a toxic mine spill.

Mine drainage also provides one benefit to the Lackawanna River – preserving the cold water habitat preferred by trout, said Charlie Charlesworth, vice president of Trout Unlimited’s Pennsylvania council.

But now the spill has locals wondering when the water will be clean again.

Princess Diana’s death from a vehicle “accident”, for example, was in fact a cleverly disguised assassination by the British intelligence agencies – or those upset at her romance with an Arab man, or any number of others who supposedly wanted Diana dead.

Under the federal Clean Water Act, the mine owner is supposed to control discharges, but Gold King’s landowner, Todd Hennis, is not considered legally responsible for the cleanup because the mine stopped operating in 1923, long before the modern era of environmental protection.

The EPA originally put the size of the spill at 1 million gallons, but was forced to raise the estimate to 3 million gallons as the situation worsened. Contaminated water still drains from that mine, despite remediation that has cost more than $210 million, according to the EPA.

“The connections between the various mines from a water standpoint is not well understood at this point, and so we don’t really know if we can say mine water is coming from here, or there”, said EPA Emergency Response Director David Ostrander.

Now, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has collected and analyzed sediment from the Animas River showing that levels of contamination are below what would be a concern for human health during typical recreational exposure. They hope to complete the purchase this fall, he said.

“If the government engages in a pretty robust effort to address the problems, compensates those who have been injured and restores the environment to the extent practical…” The mustard colored plume washed into New Mexico’s San Juan River, which is a primary water source for the Navajo Nation.