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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.

The state has reopened the Animas River for recreational use and to be used for drinking water following tests that show water quality has improved. “We’ve really weathered the storm and got the situation under control”.

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

This is all the more example why EPA, we should do it locally.

New Mexico’s top environmental official is accusing Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper of a “reckless and irresponsible act” for swigging water straight from the contaminated Animas River.

“I am absolutely, deeply sorry that this ever happened”, she said. “Pure yellow. Like Tang”.

Heavy metals naturally occur in the Rocky Mountains; they get released when water enters mines, either through mining operations or from snow and rain.

The New Mexico Environment Department’s Water Quality Bureau released results Tuesday that showed the plume of toxic mine waste caused little to no change in the Animas and San Juan rivers’ pH levels. The plume has since passed through parts of Colorado, New Mexico,...

However, the toxic source of the water, the mines in the San Juan Mountains, are only now being addressed because of the work of the federal agency.

The safest solution would be to install a treatment plant that would clean the water from Gold King and three other nearby mines.

It will take many years and many millions of dollars simply to manage and not even remove the toxic wastewater from an abandoned mine that unleashed a 100-mile-long torrent of heavy metals into Western rivers and has likely reached Lake Powell, experts said.

The EPA has claimed responsibility for the disaster and is working to address the crisis, but the organization is continuing to receive backlash.

The toxic spill began last Wednesday near Silverton, Colorado when an EPA contracted team trying to access and treat metallic waste in the abandoned Gold King Mine broke through the wall of a retention pond which sent wastewater laced with lead, arsenic, beryllium, cadmium and...

Communities along the Animas and San Juan rivers in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah have been forced to stop using river water after 3 million gallons of wastewater spilled from an old Colorado mine.

The worries stem from the farmland that uses river water for irrigation, and the communication barriers that may be keeping some members of the Navajo community uninformed of the contamination. The plume is now headed to Lake Powell, one of the major reservoirs on the Colorado...