Animas River Spill: How We Got Here, And What’s Next

“She said the period of time those concentrations remain in one area is short”.

Southwestern Colorado’s La Plata County and Durango have also declared states of emergency, according to the Denver Post. They have been flooding the airwaves and social media with Navajo-language public service announcements to keep people updated.

Balderas says that because there are questions about the safety of the river, it’s too early to guess at the true costs of what he called an unfortunate disaster. The EPA had initially estimated that 1 million gallons of the metal-laden water was released, but later announced more than 3 million.

The river is slowly, but surely, clearing up.

Since the spill began a week ago, the 100-mile plume has traveled through parts of Colorado, New Mexico and Utah on the way to Lake Powell, a key source of water for the Southwest. So far, officials say they see no problems.

Since not everyone trusts what the EPA is telling them, KOB has decided to get the water tested ourselves, hiring an independent lab to analyze water we’ve collected from the Animas. That river flows into the San Juan River and down through New Mexico, raising concerns about downstream pollution.

Water samples from the wells were sent to a laboratory in Albuquerque, and results are expected in about three days. But as others have pointed out, there are various reasons cleanup at this and other sites has been complicated.

The agency also plans a survey of wild fish in the Animas and will compare it to a survey done past year.

The wastewater contains toxic heavy metals including lead, which can harm fetal development and cause vision impairment and kidney disease, and arsenic, which at high levels could cause paralysis, blindness, and cancer.

It was apparent during an informal meeting between state and federal officials that the two entities are at odds over whether the river is ready to reopen.

“I’m from the school, ‘Trust, but verify.’ And we will have a parallel set of data for every one of these tests, whether there was heavy metals in those fingerling fish or the trout, whether it’s safe to put water in those irrigation ditches”, Hickenlooper said.

EPA crews were cleaning up an old mine at the time of the mistake. Hickenlooper said.

Kim Cofman and her daughters Acacia, 12, left, and Cayenne, 14, try to stir up sludge from the Gold King Mine that covers the bottom the Animas River on Saturday, August 8, 2015, in Durango, Colo., near the 32nd Street Bridge but find the only way to disturb it is to dig into the yellow muck.

Administrator McCarthy said today she understands the “frustration” but that the EPA has “researchers and scientists working around the clock” and is hustling to provide “alternative water supplies”. Instead, the EPA decided on a softer approach: go into the worst of the abandoned mines, measure the level of pollution, treat the sludge and figure out whether more remediation was necessary.

The EPA has taken full responsibility for the spill and implemented an online claim process to compensate residents who have suffered personal injury or property damage.

It’s changed the color of the river to a mustard yellow, and so far it’s stretched more than 100 miles, heading toward the Colorado River. It washed down the river and is believed to have passed into Utah, but it’s hard to detect because it’s been diluted.

Fears of serious health risks quickly surfaced, but Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment Executive Director Larry Wolk said Tuesday the river is returning to normal.

However, local and tribal officials are concerned about river sediment being contaminated and the potential long-term effects.

While the incident has opened the EPA to criticism – especially by those who say the agency waited too long to publicize the spill – others note that the area near Silverton, where the breach occurred, has many abandoned mines that hold toxic water.