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XPost: co.politics

Back in June, the Environmental Protection Agency had begun work
to plug the abandoned Red and Bonita mine near Silverton,
Colorado, that had been draining toxic heavy metals into the
Animas River for years.

Then everything went horribly, horribly wrong.

On August 4, EPA workers were clearing out the nearby Gold King
mine, closed since 1923, when they breached a debris dam that
had been holding back a massive amount of water laced with
arsenic, lead, and other toxins.

All that contaminated water gushed out, unstoppably, coursing
down the mountains and turning the Animas River a sickening
shade of yellow:

At first, the EPA said that about 1 million gallons of
wastewater had been released. Then, on an August 9 press call,
officials said they'd taken fresh measurements and actually 3
million gallons had spilled out — about five Olympic-sized
swimming pools worth.

Officials have warned people in the region to avoid contact with
the river as the contaminated water surges through. The EPA is
also warning people with wells in nearby floodplains to have
their water tested before drinking or bathing. Both the nearby
city of Durango and La Plata County in Colorado have declared
states of emergencies, as has the Navajo Nation Commission on
Emergency Management.

This whole disaster raises a couple of big questions: Why was
the EPA messing around with abandoned mines in this area? And
how did the agency manage to trigger such a massive spill? To
understand this story, we have to walk back through the legacy
of mining in Colorado, which is still creating grisly
environmental problems to this day.

Colorado has hundreds of old mines still leaking toxins

Starting in the 1870s, miners have rushed to the Silverton
region to seek out gold, silver, and other valuable resources.
But as Stephanie Ogburn at KUNC and Jonathan Thompson at High
Country News recount in excellent pieces, that mining boom left
a serious mess behind.

There were two major environmental problems associated with
mining. First, up until the 1930s or so, miners often just
dumped their tailings — waste material that frequently contained
toxic heavy metals — into nearby streams and rivers. Around
Silverton, heavy metals accumulated in the riverbeds of the
Upper Animas River, and their effects lingered for decades. For
many years, fish couldn't survive in these waters.

Second, as miners dug and blasted shafts, they'd typically hit
groundwater, which would begin flowing through fractures in the
rock. As that water mixed with air and sulfides, it would react
to form sulfuric acid. That acidic wash, in turn, dissolved and
picked up various heavy metals in the ground — like zinc,
arsenic, lead, and copper. These toxic streams of water are
known as "acid mine drainage" and they're still a problem to
this day, flowing out of mines and into nearby streams.

The last mine near Silverton closed in 1991. But there are still
more than 400 abandoned mines in the region, and many continue
to fill up with toxin-laced water that then leaches out into
rivers and streams. And cleaning up these old mines has been a
gruesome challenge for decades.

The state has struggled to clean up these old mines — and EPA
recently stepped in

That brings us to the Red and Bonita and Gold King mines that
the EPA was working on. These, too, have a tangled history.

In 1991, Sunnyside Gold Corp. closed its last big mine in the
region, American Tunnel. After long negotiations with the state,
Sunnyside began clean-up efforts and eventually plugged American
Tunnel in three places to prevent further acid mine drainage.

Unfortunately, the water in the mines then backed up and, in
2006, acid drainage began leaking out of the nearby Red and
Bonita mines, which had long been abandoned. The company that
had taken ownership of these mines in the meantime, Gold King,
soon ran into financial difficulties and could no longer treat
the water that was pouring into the Upper Animas River. After a
brief period when fish had returned to the river, it was
poisoned yet again.

Now enter the EPA. Ever since the 1980s, the agency has wanted
to declare parts of the Silverton region a Superfund site, which
would trigger federal funds for intensive clean-up efforts. But
local residents have long resisted this move, out of concern
that the bad publicity would drive tourists away.

So, instead, the EPA has been taking a more piecemeal approach —
working with the state and the Animas River Stakeholder Group to
clean up mines in the region bit by bit. That meant removing
waste from both the Red and Bonita and nearby Gold King mines,
diverting water that was entering those mines, and eventually
plugging their openings with concrete bulkheads. The cost? Some
$1.5 million.

It's worth noting that even this clean-up measure was always
considered highly uncertain. EPA workers didn't know if the acid
mine discharge would eventually back out and flow somewhere
else. "This, in a way, is as much as experiment as the American
Tunnel," Steve Fearn, co-coordinator of the Animas River
Stakeholders Group, told the Durango Herald in June.

The clean-up efforts went horribly awry in August

The EPA began clean-up work in late June 2015. On August 4,
workers were clearing out the partially collapsed Gold King mine
when they breached a debris dam that had been holding back toxic
water, filled with contaminants. That water flowed out, and the
Animas River was suddenly flooded yet again by a gusher of heavy
metals.

Some notes here: First, the river was hardly pristine before
this incident, and it's unclear how much additional damage this
blow-out has actually caused. Testing by the EPA has revealed
that the heavy metal contaminants became more diluted by the
time the water reached the town of Durango, and early tests
downstream with fish cages have revealed that the water isn't
killing them all. Still, it's a worrisome situation and the
agency is scrambling to monitor things closely.

Meanwhile, this is hardly the first disastrous blowout from an
old mine. Jonathan Thompson of High Country News offers some
context: "In June of 1975, a huge tailings pile on the banks of
the Animas River northeast of Silverton was breached, dumping
tens of thousands of gallons of water, along with 50,000 tons of heavy-metal-loaded tailings into the Animas. For 100 miles
downstream, the river 'looked like aluminum paint,' according to
a Durango Herald reporter at the time; fish placed in a cage in
the water in Durango all died within 24 hours."

Still, what's eye-catching here is that this time the EPA is at
fault — not a mining company. Even though the agency was trying
to clean up a toxic mess that has been simmering for decades,
even though efforts to stem the flow of polluted mining water
have often gone awry, even though these particular clean-up
efforts were basically expected to go awry, there's an
undeniable irony in the whole situation.

"It’s hard being on the other side of this, in terms of being
the one who caused this incident," David Ostrander, the EPA’s
head of emergency management, told a crowd in Durango, according
to the Guardian. "We usually respond to emergencies, we don’t
cause them," said Ostrander.

The agency is currently facing criticism for failing to notify
other agencies quickly enough after the spill occurred —
including the state of New Mexico, where the polluted water is
heading. Indeed, if a company had acted in a similar fashion,
the EPA might have potentially levied fines or other penalties.

In the meantime, the polluted water is coursing down the river,
eventually joining up with other waterways and making its way
into New Mexico, with the long-term effects still unknown.

Further reading

-- The Denver Post has been delivering frequent updates on the
Animas situation.

-- I mentioned them above, but this great KUNC piece by
Stephanie Ogburn on the EPA's clean-up efforts in Silverton is
definitely worth your time. So is this excellent piece by
Jonathan Thompson of High Country News.

-- This 2014 piece by Mary Shinn of the Durango Herald has some
great context on efforts to clean up the Red and Bonita mine.

http://www.vox.com/2015/8/10/9126853/epa-mine-spill-animas

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