Last Wednesday, Aug. 5, workers with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) accidentally released wastewater at an abandoned gold mine in southwest Colorado. An estimated 3 million gal of mustard-colored mining wastewater, laced with heavy metals, spilled into the Animas River.
Days after the spill, southern Colorado and northwestern New Mexico residents continue to avoid the river. Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper declared a state of emergency on Monday, Aug. 11.
Hickenlooper said the disaster declaration would allow him to use $500,000 from the state's disaster fund to pay for the response. Some of the money will go toward towns and businesses hurt by the spill.
The EPA initially said 1 million gal of wastewater had been released, but that figure has since tripled. After waiting a day to reveal the incident, the EPA has been criticized by those who say it didn't announce the accident soon enough. EPA officials say it took time to realize the magnitude of the spill.
KUNC reported, "Scientists say it's the largest untreated mine drainage in the state, and problematic concentrations of zinc, copper, cadmium, iron, lead, manganese and aluminum are choking off the Upper Animas River's ecosystem."
Reporting on how the breach occurred, Colorado Public Radio said that an EPA team, hoping to install a drain pipe, used heavy equipment to dig into a dam at the Gold King Mine site, shuttered since 1923. But because of the volume of water and the dam's makeup of soil and not rock, it spewed zinc, iron and contaminants at 550 gal per minute into a runoff channel that leads to the nearby creek, sending a yellow-orange sludge leaking into the Animas River. Test samples from the waste at the mine showed high levels of hazardous metals like lead and arsenic.
State officials and EPA engineers are waiting on test samples from river water in New Mexico to see if those levels stayed high after the plume thinned out. When they’re released, officials will have a better idea of when things might be back to normal. Until then, farmers can’t use the river for crops or livestock and people living off private wells have no water.
