Water Quality in Animas River at Pre-Spill Levels

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

“Certainly we’ve been frustrated”, said Peter Butler, co-coordinator of the Stakeholders Group and former chairman of the Colorado Water Control Commission. “My hope is this has embarrassed the hell out of them and they’re going to finally take it seriously”. These including pulling in large water storage tanks and moving livestock to safe pens to protect them from the pollution.

“We have to be vigilant as attorneys general, as the lawyers for the state, as protectors of the environment, to be sure that the assurances that we received today from the Environmental Protection Agency are the same in two years, in five years, even 10 years when we discover what the damage to the environment actually is”, Coffman said after meeting with her counterparts Wednesday in Durango.

The full ramifications of the spill will obviously take time to uncover and assess.

Neither is the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation concerned about health risks in Lake Powell, said a Colorado-based spokeswoman, Justyn Liff.

There are hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines nationwide. 3 million gallons of mine waste containing heavy metals was unleashed.

The crew underestimated the pressure and volume built up behind the blockage, and when workers removed too much debris the roof ruptured, releasing a plume of toxic waste into Cement Creek, which drains into the Animas River.

Colorado’s stretch of the river reopened Friday to rafting and kayaking – an important part of the region’s tourist economy.

Wash hands thoroughly with soap and water after contact with the sediment and surface water.

The (Farmington) Daily Times reported that state Environmental Department Secretary Ryan Flynn told residents there Wednesday night that the move was irresponsible and sent a bad message.

The EPA has taken responsibility for the release of the wastewater and water quality in the Animas has been improving since the spill. “We are going to be fully accountable for this in a transparent way”, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said.

In a subsequent interview with Breitbart, Taylor said he did not know the EPA was planning to mess with the mine that ultimately dumped the sludge, in addition to the Red and Bonita mine that his letter was referring to.

On Friday, officials in Colorado reopened the Animas to boating after the wastewater laced with heavy metals spilled into the popular waterway. In Aztec, City Manager Josh Rays says authorities are primarily concerned with getting drinking water to residents who use wells instead of the municipal system.

Until the mining laws are reformed and the abandoned mines get cleaned up, more disasters like Gold King are bound to happen. Members of Colorado’s and New Mexico’s congressional delegations, in a letter to President Obama this week, asked to explore the idea of a water treatment plant in the Upper Animas River. “It’s time to stop dinking around with the problem and get on with it”. EPA’s early testing of the Animas turned up high levels of arsenic, copper, lead, molybdenum and other contaminants. These metals far exceeded government exposure limits for aquatic life and humans in the hours after the spill.

Russell Begaye stared at the yellow water that keeps pouring out of a hole in the side of a Colorado mountain, racing down a slope and dumping heavy metals into rivers critical to survival on the nation’s largest Native American reservation and across the Southwest. McCarthy promised a long-term plan to address riverbed contamination, but offered no specifics.

The EPA says the sediment samples collected in the Animas River from Baker’s Bridge to north of Durango have been analyzed but not yet validated.