As anger rises, EPA takes blame for mine spill

Ryan Parker, a water research specialist, takes samples Tuesday from the San Juan River in Montezuma Creek, Utah, to check fo… Begaye said “Decades. That is totally, completely unsettling”, Begaye said. “This is a huge issue”. In the San Juan River, dissolved oxygen decreased slightly, the release said. “I’m just not comfortable”, McGrath told the governor. “And we have yet to hear from the Obama administration”.

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.

Donations of bottled water were sent in, and the American Red Cross was working to get water to homeless people who live along the river and depend on it for bathing. The EPA agreed to allow local officials to lead clean-up efforts instead.

Several political leaders have expressed outrage at the EPA spill and declared states of emergency, but the Navajo Nation is the first to say it will take legal action the federal government.

Still, she and the attorneys general from New Mexico and Utah say they stand ready to protect the rights of their states’ residents and ensure they are compensated for immediate and long-term damage caused by the spill.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy commented during a speech in Washington Tuesday that she was pained by her agency’s role in the accident.

Colorado health officials say the city of Durango can resume using drinking water treatment facilities that draw from the river affected by a mine spill.

The river remains closed, but the go-ahead for business and recreational activities to resume could come soon, he said.

The discharge turned the Animas a murky yellow color, and the spill has hit local businesses that rely on tourists hard.

Heavy metals from Gold King and different defunct mines have been leaching into the water, killing fish and different species, for many years as rain and snowmelt swimming pools and spills from locations left deserted and uncovered to the weather.

A few hours after the spill, an official EPA statement described it as nothing more than a “pulse” that had “dissipated in about an hour”.

No die-off of wildlife along the river has yet been detected.

There is sadness among residents over the spill, but also anger that the EPA was responsible for it. That same agency is now testing the water and hinting the health effects will be minimal, Beckley said, but how to trust them?

No drinking-water contamination has been reported because water utilities shut down their intake valves ahead of the plume to keep it out of their systems.

Before the plume arrived in Farmington, the bureau collected baseline data from three locations – two on the Animas River near Aztec and Farmington and one on the San Juan in Kirtland. Farmers also worry about contaminating their irrigation ditches once the gates are reopened, and ranchers are looking for assurances that livestock won’t be exposed to contaminants each time they wade into the river and kick up sediment while getting a drink.

“We had lots of trips booked”.

“One of the biggest concerns you hear about Superfund is, “Oh, the bad publicity we get”, Esper said”.

Mining companies don’t like to invest in Superfund sites because they’re heavily scrutinized and more costly to develop, said Ernest Kuhlman, a San Juan County commissioner and Silverton’s former mayor.