EPA Chief on Toxic Spill Says Water is Restored Sediment to Follow

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has put a hold on field inspections such as the one that accidentally triggered a 3 million-gallon toxic spill into the Animas River in Colorado. “Pure yellow. Like Tang”.

The toxic accident caused by the Environmental Protection Agency has washed all the way from Colorado to Utah.

McCarthy said Wednesday afternoon at a press event in Durango the agency takes “full responsibility” for the spill last week at the Gold King Mine.

New results from the EPA give an idea of just how many toxic chemicals were released. Once the tablet took effect, he began to drink from the river, about 20 miles south of the spill. “For us it’s not just recreational purposes”.

They have since become legacies of the industry’s boom-bust cycles, in which companies fold up operations when metals prices fall, leaving behind sources of toxic wastewater that chronically leave rivers barren and taint drinking water supplies.

The former operator of the Sunnyside Mine, Sunnyside Gold Corp., disputes that assertion, but the EPA notes in its regional risk assessment report that water discharge from the Gold King, Red & Bonita and Mogul mines increased dramatically in 2003, shortly after Sunnyside Gold Corp. finished plugging Sunnyside Mine.

McCarthy pointed out the EPA has been asking for two decades for a Superfund designation in the region, which would make federal funds available for controlling the pollution.

The Navajo Nation is preparing to file the lawsuit now, Begaye told ICTMN.

“We don’t have a viable approach either way”, he said. EPA tested for 24 metals at the river’s surface immediately after the spill.

The visit follows her stop upstream in Durango, Colorado, on Wednesday.

Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman said she was visiting Durango to see what is happening to the Animas River and to hear from residents.

He said the EPA and its local partner, the Animas River Shareholders Group, has taken a “mine-by-mine” approach to remediation, which has made progress hard.

“EPA is in it for the long haul”, she said.

The metals far exceeded government exposure limits for aquatic life and humans in the hours after the August 5 spill, which sent 3 million gallons of wastewater through three Western states and the Navajo Nation. “We need to keep looking at these mines”. Initial tests from the city of Farmington show slightly higher than safe levels of lead in the river water through town. One of the samples of mercury was almost 10 times higher than the acceptable EPA levels. The state and county are conducting independent testing along the river to determine contamination levels in the water and soil.

The state continued to warn people not to use it for irrigation or livestock water, however, Utah Department of Environmental Quality spokeswoman Donna Spangler. “This is the anguish I’m going through as an elected representative is the denial of information”.

For Begaye, who grew up in the small Navajo community of Shiprock, seeing yellow water spew from the rock brought back memories of past traumas. “No agency could be more upset”.

Richard Charley, right, and Melvin Jones deliver water to a ranch along the San Juan River on the Navajo Reservation, Wednesday, August 12, 2015, in Shiprock, NM.

“Today, for the first time, I was told there was uranium spillage”, he said.

While there have been no fish or bird die-offs, Flynn said that doesn’t mean the river is healthy or safe. “In this case [Gold King Mine], we will not allow this to happen”.