XPost: alt.politics.obama, sac.politics, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh
XPost: alt.native
Government officials from New Mexico and the Navajo Nation were
among those working through the weekend to try to understand and
respond to the Environmental Protection Agency’s inadvertent
triggering of the spill of an estimated 3 million gallons of
toxic waste into the Animas River last week.
Wired has a succinct summary of how we got here:
It’s a classic case of good intentions backfiring. The abandoned
mines in the area have long been a problem, filling up with
acidic wastewater that leaches heavy metals out of rock and
leaks into the river—a slow-motion environmental debacle. And
the EPA has been trying to designate the mines a Superfund site
for years, only to come up against local resistance. The mines
still aren’t on the Superfund list, but the EPA has been trying
to them clean up anyway. That’s why a crew was digging around
the Gold King Mine — they starting to investigate leaks when the
mine’s plug blew, turning the slow-motion problem into a fast-
moving, highly visible advertisement for fixing the problem.
“It’s hard being on the other side of this,” said Dave
Ostrander, the regional EPA director of emergency preparedness,
at a public meeting on Friday afternoon. “We typically respond
to emergencies; we don’t cause them.”
The spill occurred along the Animas River in Southwestern
Colorado, which flows through Northwestern New Mexico near Aztec
and into the San Juan River. The water then flows through the
Navajo Nation as part of the Colorado River system that provides
water to much of Arizona and Southern California.
Officials in New Mexico and the Navajo Nation have urged people
to stay away from the rivers while the contamination flows
through. Both governments are conducting their own tests to
determine the severity of the disaster.
N.M. Gov. Susana Martinez said the EPA failed to notify the
state about the spill for 24 hours. State officials are highly
critical of the federal agency.
“We will not allow EPA to leave until they have compensated us,”
N.M. Environment Department Cabinet Secretary Ryan Flynn said
during a town hall meeting, according to the Farmington Daily
Times.
New Mexico’s congressman representing that area, Democrat Ben
Ray Luján, also criticized the EPA’s response during a weekend
meeting, according to the newspaper.
“There’s a lot of questions that our constituents have, and so
many communities have as well, that we need to get rapid
responses to,” the Daily Times quoted him as saying.
Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye announced Sunday that the
Navajo Nation was making cleanup plans and preparing lawsuits
against the Gold King Mine, where the spill occurred, and the
EPA.
“We are going to be suing for millions, billions of dollars,”
the Navajo Times quoted Begaye as saying. “…We are going to make
EPA pay for this.”
‘Thank you EPA’
Though many said the mine shares blame for the pollution, much
of the anger in a discussion NMPolitics.net facilitated on
Facebook was aimed at the EPA.
“Thank you EPA,” former state Rep. Kathy McCoy of Albuquerque
wrote. “If a private company had done this, they’d be jailed and
fined within minutes.”
“This is your crack government professionals at work,” wrote
Mike Johnson of Santa Fe.
Not all were quick to express anger. “The EPA now must be
completely open and hide nothing,” Michael Swickard of Las
Cruces wrote. “I’m not mad that an accident did happen, but if
the EPA gives us attitude or they BS us, I will be angry.”
Many joined the Martinez Administration in expressing
frustration about the EPA’s lack of information gathering and/or
sharing about the spill.
Claudia Anderson of Farmington said the San Juan River runs
along her property. She wrote on Facebook that her “biggest beef
is the lack of timely information.” She was worried about
wildlife.
“We keep part of the property wild as sanctuary, and I’ve got
turkeys and deer and raccoons and heaven only knows what else
who drink out of that river,” Anderson wrote.
Officials were scrambling, without solid information, to keep
people and animals safe. Among Begaye’s words to people on the
Navajo Nation, according to the Navajo Times: Stay out of the
San Juan River. Keep livestock from drinking the water. Avoid
using the river water.
The Durango Herald on Sunday published an article about “cause
for optimism:” Days after the spill, there haven’t been massive
fish or insect die-offs.
Effects ‘will be felt for months’
Later Sunday the EPA upped its estimate of the spill’s size from
1 million gallons to 3 million. And one thing is certain, the
Durango Herald reported in a separate article:
The effects of the environmental disaster will be felt for
months. The high-water mark left from the pulse of toxic waste
deposited a yellow-orange film along large swaths of the Animas
River. As the murky water traveled 50 miles from Silverton, it
tumbled over rocks that kept it stirred. By the time it arrived
in the Animas Valley near Dalton Ranch, the river slowed, which
gave minerals a chance to settle on the riverbed. High-water run-
off events are expected to stir those sediments and cloud the
river during the weeks and months to come.
And from Wired:
The EPA is working to stop the flow into the river by building a
retention pond next to the mine. But the contaminants already in
the water? There’s nothing to do — except wait for the muck to
sink or dilute down. The Bureau of Reclamation is releasing more
water from the Navajo Dam to dilute the toxic metals. But spring
runoff next year might stir up contaminants that have sunk to
the river bottom all over again.
Carol Miller of Ojo Sarco wrote on Facebook that the spill is a
symptom of a larger problem.
“The real cause of this was the company or companies that mined
and profited from the ore and walked away from the mess, not
even attempting remediation,” she wrote. “The heavy metals sink
to the bottom and the river and stream banks even as the
contamination is diluted. Every time there are rains, snowmelt
and/or high water the toxins will be re-suspended. This is a
long-term disaster that isn’t over when the river again runs
clear.”
Video
Here’s video from the Durango Herald of the contamination
flowing into the river:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faTNIWP3qaE
http://www.nmpolitics.net/index/2015/08/officials-pledge-to-make- the-epa-pay-for-animas-river-spill/
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