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Did The EPA Intentionally Poison Animas River To Secure SuperFund Money?
A week before The EPA disastrously leaked millions of gallons of toxic waste into The Animas River in Colorado, this letter to the editor was published in The Silverton Standard & The Miner local newspaper, authored by a retired geologist detailing verbatim, how EPA would foul the Animas River on purpose in order to secure superfund money...
"But make no mistake, within seven days, all of the 500gpm flow will return to Cememnt Creek. Contamination may actually increase... The "grand experiment" in my opinion will fail.
And guess what [EPA's] Mr. Hestmark will say then?
Gee, "Plan A" didn't work so I guess we will have to build a treat¬ment plant at a cost to taxpayers of $100 million to $500 million (who knows).
Reading between the lines, I believe that has been the EPA's plan all along"
Sound like something a government entity would do? Just ask Lois Lerner...
As we concluded previously,
The EPA actually has no concern for the environment, they just happen to use the environment as a cover story to create laws and gain an advantage for the companies that lobbied for exemptions to the agency’s regulations, and to collect money in fines. There are solutions outside the common government paradigm, and that is mainly the ability for individuals, not governments, to hold polluters personally and financially accountable.
h/t Stephen
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Most building collapse into the own footprints. If you make steel for trusses you should know that. It is a property of how they bear the loads which are mostly vertical and mostly compressional. Look at WWII photos where building were bombed. Looked at collapsed buidlings in earthquakes.
You cannot put a horizontal force on a wide enough plane to sort of "push" a building over as Rosie O'Donnel thinks.
You have the whole thing on video.
Steel frame high rise buildings don't totally collapse from fire. Even the NIST has admitted this in their own report.
One thing worse than a troll is a low-paid idiot troll.
Actually, I have a degree in engineering in several disciplines. I was at the World Trade Center for an engineering tour long before the collapse. We discussed the construction including the fireproofing. This was followed by several suspension brigdge tours. Maybe you want to tell us what you know about those, as well.
Buildings collapse all the time. They do not just fall. There is always some trauma whether fire, explosion, earthquake, etc. They DO collapse because of fire depending on several factors. Go to any city fire department and tell them no steel framed building will ever collapse because of fire. Go to any engineering school.
I do agree with your last sentence, dumbass troll. And I am pretty sure I make many multiples of your barista wages.
Idiot. If that were the case I coudn't even cook on the grill. It would melt the metal.
How many tons of steel/concrete are sitting atop your grill?
How many tons of architects and engineer notes go into building a skyscraper? How many tons of safety factor calculations, including fires and plane strikes?
You are joking, right, Sandia? It is hard to tell on here, at times.
I am going to stick with this guy...read it if you dare.
http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200609/WhyIndeedDidtheWorldTra...
And the pancake collapse of Building 7 that afternoon, with the help of no jet fuel and no airplane, proves that buildings do have feelings. I think I'll go collapse now.
They do. You can hear them groan as the stresses build. When you hear that you probably should start running.
More like when Nero burnt Rome to clear out the Hebrews . To get the land. Why do you think they are running those ads about taking kids to the Forrest . A land grab its forr the kids!
Never let a perfectly good crisis go to waste, especially if you've spent a lot of time manufacturing a crisis
Ban the EPA...
Waco was such an event also. The BATF had been exposed by 60 Minutes on CBS for its sexist and racist parties, and they were coming up for funding renewal. So they chose to illegally and immorally attack the Branch Davidians. They and their fellow Feds of the FBI and Delta Force and Billy the Kid Killer Clinton and Reno ALL got away SCOT FREE.
From NYU Professor and former Assistant AG for the State of COLORADO Dave Kopel:
"They wouldn't do that...how can you say that? That is like saying multiple steel buildings can magically fall from Jet fuel fire..........oh wait."
They didn't falll from a jet fuel fire.
They fell from the fire that consumed the office combustibles inside the buildings. Stop the BS.
Have they ever looked up or visited the pacific?
I guess we will have to build a treat¬ment plant at a cost to taxpayers of $100 million to $500 million (who knows).
But that will create so many government jobs. And old Yeller can print that chump change in a microsecond.
All things are possible under fraud.
Including debt!
"All things are possible under fraud."
Let's chage the money to read "In fraud we trust"
There isn't anything funny about this but man, their mission statement is incredible.
http://www2.epa.gov/aboutepa/our-mission-and-what-we-do
Our MissionThe mission of EPA is to protect human health and the environment.
EPA's purpose is to ensure that:
Indeed, this has Krugman written all over it.
Organisations do not self punish. If there is to be punishment it must come from outside the organisation.
so don't expect the EPA ever to restrain itself.
Where theres muck, theres brass(coin).
Wow, fuckers, all of them.
The EPA is the devil.
Momma tell you that? ;->
a subsidiary
the river in the wealthiest town in colo is dark brown and smells.
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_20232643/report-south-platte-most-poll...
The South Platte? Wear protection and hose off your boat after "recreating".
Little Shop of [Taxpayer] Horrors.
Feed me, Seymour! FEED ME!
The residents in Durango who bought all of those high-priced houses partially for "the clean air and water" up there have quite a problem on thier hands. Aside from the toxic environment now, the value of their riverside property just sunk by ALOT!
I though TPTB adored Colorado, legalized Pot, huge influx of hard core libs, lots of illegals...Demoncrat control. Oh, wait...those EVIL Republicans did it. The Koch Brothers, the Koch Brothers....
I hope nothing bad happens to Mr. Taylor.
They went into business for themselves.
I hope Mr. Taylor checks his brake lines before driving from now on.
..."But Mr. Taylor, only hab a one Killa, and da name of that Killa is..."?
Ok, who can identify that line...? C'mon you oldsters...
Supposedly Mr. Taylor died in 2013
Larry Silverstein "lives"!
There are no accidents, especially when the outcome benefits a particular party.
They knew they had "no fault" insurance, so why not just take the gamble?
Are officially published economic data 'massaged' to obtain the desired results...?
Does a bear...?
some of us
poop on the iceberg...
When did this site become full of conspiracy theory nuts? The rest of the site loses credibility when you publish shit articles like this.
What is conspiracy about a guy writing an article predicting what would happen before it happened? Nebbish...
jason, its true that this site is polluted unconscionably by the tin-foil hat brigade's spewing of ridiculous conspiracy theories. Professor Sunstein at Harvard has offered effective solutions to these groups which should be considered carefully when the next administration takes office.
Sunstein... JFC. If I was going to make a deck of cards of Domestic Terrorists, he would surely be deserving of a 'face card'.
'King of Lies', we can maybe call it?
The conspiracy is that members of the epa wreaked fucking havoc in order to secure funds, and its not a theory.
Read the letter by that retired geologist that predicted this, dumba$$.
Probably not intentional but definitely incompetence on the EPA's part. The EPA, however, has been pushing Superfund status in the area for years. Locals have resisted out of fear of the hit on tourism.
Oh ye of too much faith...
Did you read the letter that was published before the event, or are you so stupid that you comment without reading?
If you fear the truth, then you will rush into the arms of lies, deception, and falsehood.
Its conspiracy to re-publish evidence that was printed before the accident to support the conclusion the whole thing was planned?
GO FUCK YOURSELF !!!
So, you can't handle it? Everyone commenting before me is spelling it out for you since "the denial is strong" with you.
Jason, you live your life like this. It shocks you, you turn it off because it couldn't be true. You stop thinking. I can't imagine how small your life has to be, shock, avoid, shock, avoid, until you are living in a tiny little box. Getting through the pain of realizing just how corrupt this country (indeed the world, but hey we are world leaders) is, hurts less than you think. And on the other side you can stand taller because you know the truth and don't have to "avoid" any more, you are not a "pussy" any more. This story is your personal red pill friend. Wake the fuck up.
Good luck.
Beautiful. My eyes have been open for a loonnng time, but i get sick of the daily grind of more and more crap. This is inspirational, i will cross out jason and replace it with country. I will read it as often as possible. Thanks MS.
Well said!
(not) funny how very often 'conspiracy theory' is proven to be 'conspiracy fact' lately, isn't it? Maybe not to you...but perhaps it would if you pulled your head out of the sand and wokeTF up.
Ok, they have gotten away, for now, with 9-11.
Now we have this disaster, and this evidence, are we going to let this one slip away, too?
The only THING the government HAS to be GOOD at is ROBBING its citizens.....
I think the people in that area need to eradicate any EPA personel. The old-fashioned way. This is INSANE.
I dont see the problem...just bottle that shit and sell it as carrot juice...
Better idea, throw all the EPA criminals in it.
Organic mineral carrot juice!
Good story...
Follow the money ... whoever gets the contract to clean it up is ...
It will be Haliburton because they have had declining revenues as of late.
The upcoming war will help fix that declining revenues problem.
watch who gets the property buy outs from the EPA
of course they will be 2x the true value of the properties..
I would like to see an independent analysis of the water that got released. No generalizations about what it contained.
List all the chemicals found and if anyone has "B4" river water samples I would like to see the level of fouling. Pump this into the DC water system cause it's so pretty.
I advise all those kayakers we see in the pictures to not tip over or your days will be numbered.
If EPA were to declare the Colorado River watershed a Superfund site, then the agency would be able to throw a few billion dollars at all of the elected officials in the affected states, thereby mitigating the civil liability that is about to become exponential.
Hey EPA, make sure the judges are paid first. You're gonna need 'em in your back pocket as this catastrophe develops.
Good Article ZH
I bet if a black guy was seen pouring motor oil into a river by a COP, on Earth Day, he’d be shot.
Meanwhile, the EPA blows-out an entire river and nobody is held accountable…. And if someone is held accountable I’d bet they retire with a full ride.
When presented with evidence that their government is inept, too many people will fall back to truther mode. A sinister government is better than an inept one, eh... Like children of degenerate crack addicts, some people badly want to believe that their leadership is capable of something besides fucking up everything it touches.
If this is ineptitude, how do you explain a letter predicting this?
Judges in your back posket? How Vito Corleone......
Malaria was almost wiped out entirely on the whole planet before eco-murderers used false science and lies to ban DDT. MIllions and millions have died from malaria since then. An off the charts crime against humanity.
This river fouling is nothing for the eco-murderers at the EPA.
Grimaldus
You know that story about Roundup and the spokesperson who WOULDN'T drink it, after claiming it was safe to drink?
I saw a video of a scientist say DDT is safe, AND then he drank some of it (mixed in water, I believe).
If memory serves me (not so well these days...TMI) he died about 1.5 years later.
Always some motive behind every gov't action.
more government.
So who's going to FOIA Request emails from the epa on this?
This kind of looks like Eco-terrorism.
gee wiz....looks like my comment that the epa did this on purpose may be right.
Who cares; this is a non story, for the EPA puppet masters have been doing this kind of thing since inception. Look up into the sky and when you see the aerosols; take a deep breath. The story is the same; the Banking Industrial part of the evil cabal causes a problem and then outs the blame and the bill on the taxpayer. You know this because there are never any real questions asked; like why are they there in the first place and who invited them. There are probably a few people who want the area, for it is beautiful, for pennies on the fiat dollar.
What a bunch of sick fucks.
I'm sure that the EPA is full of Eco-Terrorists. They'd be drawn to its power. With that power they can institute all sorts of regulatory decrees. These are the nuts that live naked in trees, drive spikes into tree trunks, chase whaling boats, and other non-sense.
I wouldn't put it past them to do a stunt like this.
However, I work with the permitting folks all the time, and there's maybe one that has a brain. The others are terrorists, holding projects hostage.
Thank you for posting this. Just read it on reddit.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
I call for every reader here to contact all Colorado county sheriffs and demand they arrest any EPA employee on-sight for terrorism, or leave the state by the end of the day.
@ratpack: DYK, Resistance is Futile! You Will Be Assimilated! Of course, the EPA may have to destroy the environment in order to save it. But just think of all the power the EPA will have when they capture another $100 million to deploy to their cronies, or to new contractors who promise even bigger kickbacks.
Fishhawk
That would be like an HFT firm warning is that people might abuse HFT getting caught perpetrating exactly that kind of abuse.
Responding to a lawsuit brought by the Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental groups, the Bush administration, in December 2008, agreed to divert more than 150 billion gallons of water this year from the fertile Central Valley to the San Joaquin Delta in an effort to protect the endangered Delta smelt. With the federal government withholding water from farmers, it didn’t take long for economic devastation to grip the Central Valley...
YES, THAT'S RIGHT, THE FRIKKEN DELTA SMELT BITCHEZ.
I am pretty sure that was just an intelligence test of the California population. To see what their level of outrage would be.
And I am pretty sure the California population failed with flying colors, "Oh no, the tiny delicate Delta Smelt! Which yesterday I didn't even know existed!"
Smelt. It's what's for dinner...
This article is entitled "Did The EPA Intentionally Poison Animas River To Secure SuperFund Money?"
The article builds a case for, and then concludes with:
"The EPA Intentionally Poisoned Animas River To Secure SuperFund Money".
... "reading between the lines, I believe this has been the author's plan all along".
Comrades, Comrades, the People will not come to us for supplies if any water is potable. We must hold all of it.
My comment isn't about this issue, but about people who write articles with big headlines in 72 point pitch that appear to ask a question but then the article's content from the first word to the last is a foregone conclusion.
Where are The OathKeepers? Why aren’t they shooting up the EPA? (The EPA fires back with hollowpoints).
"Mr Smith, you have been collecting rainwater."
"So?"
*Budda Budda! Blam Blam*!!
"Control, Rain Eagle. Tango Down."
"Roger, return to base."
I work in the San Juans performing acid mine drainage remediation... I'm a consultant on the private side.
The answer to this is: ABSOLUTELY NOT.
This letter to the editor doesn't even make sense in the context of the Gold King spill... this geologist is referring to a bulkhead of the Red and Bonita, which is downhill of the Gold King, and would be a permanent concrete plug. The Gold King spill was caused by a temporary dirt plug that was put in when conducting geophysical investigations int he gold king for a concrete plug up there as well.
I actually agree with him on several of his points and the overarching concept of his argument, even if the details he has are woefully inaccurate.... It would probably take several years for the 500 gpm (7 to 120 days?! LMFAO. where did he even come up with that??) to work its way back out of the mountain for instance.
I've put together EE/CA reports for these drainaged (Engineering Evaluation/Cost Assessment)... an active water treatment plant would cost ~20-25 million in capital, + 2M a year to operate in perpetuity... it would also increase risk by centralizing pipe flows in the basin to a single location that relies on electricity... in a remote part of the mountains, at 12,000 feet, with 40 feet of snow a year, and tempst that get to -40F....
Passive treatment is a superior solution. The only solution.
glad that you put this information. these kinds of issues are mainly about fulfilling fiduciary responsiblities on part of those who have access to the information and have expertise. Is there a way to get to the bottom of this issue?
What exactly are you trying to get to the bottom of?
Did the EPA act incompetently? Yep.
Do we need to do a lot more in this and other nearby basins to deal with the problem of Acid Rock Drainage that is coming out of hundreds of portals at a cumulative total of thousands of gallons per minute? You bet your ass we do. Ironically, a big reason nobody's moved forward on many of these abandoned mine land sites is the Clean Water Act... if you can't meet CWA discharge standards, even with a solution taht will cost a penny on the dollar compared to active treatment but still remove 98% of contaminants, then you're going to get fucked.
Good Samaritan legislation has been tryign to be passed for the last several years by user groups in this area that would allow for a separate style of permit that allows site-specific conditions to dictate alternate concentration limits (ACLs) and limits liability for those who would try to volunteer to clean up these heavy metal drainages.
http://water.epa.gov/action/goodsamaritan/index.cfm
"I work in the San Juans performing acid mine drainage remediation... I'm a consultant on the private side.
The answer to this is: ABSOLUTELY NOT."
So you're saying the EPA are the good guys and absolutely nothing was done here with an ulterior motive...got it.
I'm saying the EPA was there to investigate aspects of their proposed solution and did a very poor job of it.
Seems like a foul play given that the content is dated July 30th. If true then it is very troubling act in broad day light. EPA will have a very serious explanation to do unless they choose Ms. Clinton to be their spokesperson.
"What difference does it make!?"
This makes me think of Ghostbusters. Remember the EPA guy who was such a jerk, who ordered the grid shut down, and then ghosts ravaged the city.
Yes, it's true. This man has no dick.
"Reggie, it's a great day, but I'm out of ideas..."
"Why not create a deluge of toxic chemicals in one of the big rivers out west?"
"That's why I love you, Reg."
"C'mere, Munchkins."
Biden for 4, then Obama 8 more..........
/s
I want to control government money and power.
Yep. We've got your superfund money. I'ts going to be taken directly out of the EPA budget, and the budget will NOT be increased to cover it. For all you ZH readers, you would really puke if knew how superfund money was spent. Very little of it cleans up anything. Most of it goes to lawyers and other non-productive, non-cleanup uses.
Agreed.
We had to poison some rivers to save them.
-Obama/EPA
USSA, this Third World Fourth Reich sewer of corruption overflowing with dead fish...sharks naturally; rotting from the head down!
Onward thru the sludge!
Hang them.
I would love to hear a description from the guy running the excavator or whatnot explain exactly what the goal was the day the were "digging into loose material" that was part of containment. That needs to be explained. I noticed that some University prof in Colorado is all over the TV giving a pass to the EPA saying it wasn't their fault that the water level was rising. The water level rising, even if that is true, by admission was not the cause of this spill.
It still has not been explained what these fuckers were doing digging into an area containing that mess. They claimed they were looking for a leak... really? If you had a leak on a dam or a levy would you start digging into it to find the leak?
I expect the story will change shortly.
They were doing a geophysical investigation for a permanent bulkhead.
There are two stories... one is from San Juan Corp, which stated "“Upon suspending work last year, the (EPA) backfilled the portal to the mine. While the USEPA was removing the backfill from the portal to the Gold King Mine to continue its investigation this year, the plug blew out releasing contaminated water behind the backfill into the Animas River,” said Nancy Agro, the company’s attorney in the statement."
http://www.durangoherald.com/article/20150806/NEWS01/150809720/Plans-to-...
Basically, that the EPA created a loose dirt backfill plug when they left the portal 10 months ago (in what used to be a freely draining mine portal) and then were digging back into it to continue their investigation and unleashed the reservoir that they had stored for the previous 10 months. No pipe to release backpressure or control water... no secondary containment controls... incomptence at the highest level.
All of the other stories seem to call it a "Collapse" or just refer to it as 'unconsolidated debris' with no explanation for how the debris got there... I believe the EPA is trying to obfuscate their incompetence in putting the dirt plug in in the first place.
Exactly. If you are so much as a farmer with above ground fuel storage the EPA enforces spill prevention plans and redundant containment by berm, dike etc.
I worked at a place where they surprassed some gargantuan fuel storage amount and they had to have the equivalent to ocean containment plans even though the closest body of water (a river) was over 100 miles away.
Where was the redundant containment for this operation? This whole thing reeks!
Reeks.
The fact is they barely had enough funding to do the study and implementation of the Red and Bonita bulkhead and they were worried about backing water all the way up into the Gold King... my speculation is they were working on a bare bones budget piggybacking off the R&B work, did a shitty job, made some terrible decisions about how much water would end up behind their bullshit plug but didn't have the funds to drill into it to check the water back there.... and then... disaster via excavator.
Well if that was the case they should erred on the side of caution and made the decision to first do no harm. If they thought they were at risk of losing control they were at the very least obligated to warn everyone downstream. Even if they were dead broke they could still afford to make public statements as to the grave condition of containment, which may have led to more funds being available. As it is they actually drug their feet on warning anyone.
There should never have been a risk of losing control... that's not the way we're supposed to work! If there is, you make a secondary containment plan!
I really believe this was just a complete underestimation of the amount of water generated by these portals... it should also be noted that we had one of the highest late-season water buildups this spring in recorded history. Massive snowfalls in late May/Early June, then hot days in late june led to massive surges in groundwater/mine pool water.
I also think they didn't want to warn everyone about the grave containment issue because they're the ones that created it in the first place. It would have led to sticky questions... so instead they tried to sneak in the back door and solve the problem they'd created before anyone knew they created it... in a second order level of incompetence, they then fucked up the back door solution too by unleashing the water they'd dammed due to incompetent excavation/investigation practices!
Uhg. I've dedicated my life to cleaning up these watersheds. This all just makes me so sick.
The EPA still exists?!!! I thought they were garroted with barbed wire after they turned off the radiation monitors in response to Fukushima.
That guy better avoid using nail guns in the future is all I gotta say.
That would be OSHA jurisdiction.
Sounds like he might be the next victim of jumping off a 4 story building!
This is the government that's trying very hard to get us into WW 3 with Russia. They are not concerned at all about the 200+ million degree day WW 3 will cause, why would they be concerned about a little poison in a Colorado river?
Not if they could get away with faking the data. Otherwise, it won't be the first time.
Anyone who infers from Dave Taylor's letter an EPA conspiracy to intentionally pollute the Animas could politely be described as a paranoid psychotic.
Instead of name calling, tell us why.
Because the letter isn't even talking about the same mine portal!
The dirt plug that broke open was a terrible decision... this would be roundly agreed by every contractor/consultant with any level of competence.
The letter was referring to a full-on concrete plug soultion for the Red and Bonita... which is a bad idea, but it's not one that would cause a blowout at a tunnel.
Conceptually he was dead on (even if some of the letter's technical aspects are laughable, like the 7 to 120 days) about the fact that storing a mine water pool is a bad idea... it's a kick-the-can solution that results in short term improvements at the cost of creating huge risk in a billion gallon backwater pool.... but beyond a simple conceptual agreement that it's a bad idea to create large reservoirs of shit-water (There's an engineering reason behind this too... in theory by 'inundating' the tunnels you eliminate oxygen which should halt the pyritic oxidation cycle... the fundamental chemical mechanism for the acid mine drainage formation. This is misguided reasoning though, because you can never truly eliminate the oxygen-laden meteoric water infiltration, and you don't even need oxygen once you have dissolved ferric and ferrous iron anyway! They can oxidize all the metal sulifdes by themselves without oxygen!)
The real problem here is the EPA is too poor to do anything else! They're dealy afraid of treating water for perpetuity because they don't have the money for it. I've argued with the EPA on the streets of silverton about this... I'm hoping they want to listen a little better the next time I do it given current events.
And you could (not politely) be described as a clueless idiot.
If the newspaper article is real and in fact was published days ahead of the EPA caused catastrophe they should fire all involved to help cut down on EPA overhead. If all EPA employees took a pay-cut of $3,000/yr it would only take 2 to 5 years to pay for their F' up.
Destructive capitalism at its finest...seems to be the going trend with gov\elites.
Time to take the trash out.
It's obvious that Taylor disagreed with the EPA's chosen course of action. This is NEPA space, meaning everything should be all out in the open. Since what EPA did is way more than a CATEX, and there being no EIS, and it seems at first blush (my mistake!) more involved and longer-term than the usual emergency "removal" action , the EPA would (my mistake!) at first blush have acted under its NEPA authority with a rationale and chosen action documented with what's called an Environmental Assessment (EA). I'll look it up to see how the EPA documented their decisionmaking for what they paid a contractor to do for them. EPA had a contractor do this work for them. Everything they did should be publicly available. I'll post some links.
EPA page on the incident response: http://www2.epa.gov/goldkingmine
Page for Upper Animas Mining Distric CERCLA actions: http://www2.epa.gov/region8/upper-animas-mining-district
And the reason there's no EA to be found is that what they did with the berm at Gold King Mine was in fact a CERCLA emergency "removal action" and there was a community meeeting about it last January, where it's referred to as the "Red and Bonita Mine Site"
---from above link
Cleanup ProgressNumerous mine reclamation and mine waste cleanup projects have been completed in the Upper Animas watershed over the last twenty years. Many of these have been voluntary projects undertaken by the ARSG using Section 319 grant monies. Sunnyside Gold Corporation (SGC) also has conducted reclamation activities in the watershed. These efforts have included diverting runoff away from and capping mine waste piles, moving mine waste piles away from drainages, consolidating mine waste piles and re-vegetating mine waste piles.
Between 2007 and 2009, a cleanup of the Rose Walsh Smelter site was conducted under the Colorado Voluntary Cleanup program using funding from a variety of federal, state and local sources, including the Colorado Department of Local Affairs, EPA Brownfields program, San Juan County, Colorado Department of Transportation and CDPHE. The site, which was contaminated with heavy metals, is now available for redevelopment.
Under the Superfund Removal program, an engineered concrete bulkhead will be installed in the adit of the Red and Bonita Mine during summer 2015. The bulkhead will help control the ongoing release of contaminated water coming out of the adit.
Red and Bonita Removal Action Photo Log
Red and Bonita Bulkhead Construction Fact Sheet
Profile of the Red and Bonita Mine Site from the EPA On-Scene Coordinator
Top of Page
Community InvolvementCommunity involvement plays an important role in the Superfund process. EPA uses a number of different tools and resources to promote effective, on-going, meaningful community involvement. The goals of the Superfund community involvement program are to:
At this site, the following community involvement activities have taken place:
Top of Page
Next StepsEPA, BLM, CDPHE, ARSG and Trout Unlimited will be conducting extensive water quality sampling in the Animas River watershed above Silverton in 2015. Plans are to conduct water quality sampling during both high flow (spring) and low flow (fall). They will also conduct sediment sampling at the low-flow event. EPA also plans to conduct sampling of mine waste areas in the upper reaches of the UA watershed and of the tailings along the UA between Howardsville and Eureka upstream of Silverton.
EPA, BLM and CDPHE are also working with SGC on an arrangement for SGC to conduct an investigation of the Mayflower Tailings impoundments and their impacts on the water quality to the Animas River.
Top of Page
Site Documents Red and Bonita MineRed and Bonita Removal Action Photo Log, July 24, 2015
Bulkhead Construction Fact Sheet, May 2015
Removal Community Involvement Plan, January 2015
Pollution/Situation Report (POLREP #1 Initial), December 2014
Action Memorandum: Approval and Funding for a Removal Action at the Red and Bonita Mine Site, September 2014
InvestigationsSampling and Analysis Plan/Quality Assurance Project Plan for 2015 Sampling Events, June 2015
2014 Sampling Activities Report, May 2015
Draft Baseline Ecological Risk Assessment, Fact Sheet and Presentation, April 2015
Smelter Map, 2015
USGS Professional Paper 1651: Integrated Investigations of Environmental Effects of Historical Mining in the Animas River Watershed, San Juan County, Colorado, 2007
Draft Analytical Results Report, July 1999
[deleted] winmag beat me to it.
Paul Krugman just shot a double wad into his pillow
These bastards will do anything to drive people out of the southwest area in preparation to give it back to Mexico. You'll see.
If this was intentional, was it done for superfunds or is California's water supply a target? Maybe two birds with one stone? At this point California, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and after dilution Arizona will have water supply affected or possibly affected. I guess we will just have to take the EPA's word for it, they have found themselves innocent, this was a simple error.
Hmmm,
Kinda lines up with those JH15 states, eh?
lol, Operation Fuck the Southwest's water supply has been a success.
I thought the same thing, the Back Issue section hasn't been updated in a while. Check the YEAR of the issues you are searching.
Off Topic, but: How exactly does the US Stock Market go from -255 to -138 in about 30 minutes?
Am I correct to assume manipulation?
The market's even already...
http://tinyurl.com/3kpq9l
Amid all the hype, here's something sensible:
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/environmental_law/2015/08/the-perils-of-cleaning-up-the-environment.html
Saturday, August 8, 2015
The Perils of Cleaning up the EnvironmentBy Environmental Law Prof
Last summer, my family and I went rafting down the Animas River in Durango, Colorado. I took this picture during the trip:
The orange colored water you see here contains sediment mixed with a soup of heavy metals (including iron, zinc, lead, cadmium, arsenic, and copper). It was released in a mishap at the Gold King Mine, when 1 million gallons of contaminated mine waste was accidentally released into the river. You would be right to conclude that "but for industrial development this accident would not have occurred." Yet that does not tell the entire story. This release into the river was not caused by industry. It was caused by none other than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA was attempting to clean the site through its CERCLA Superfund program, which it has used to target a number of mines in the region. Runoff from these mines has led to the continued degradation of the Animas (which even before the spill had become toxic to fish). The team was using heavy equipment and accidentally breached a berm that was holding the contaminated water inside the mine.
The pollution has caused a great deal of uncertainty along the Animas and downstream in the San Juan River. The river has now been closed to recreational activities and downstream users have been warned to shut off their intake valves. David Ostrander, EPA’s director of emergency preparedness for the region, summed the situation up quite bluntly: "This is a huge tragedy. It’s hard being on the other side of this. We typically respond to emergencies, we don’t cause them."
The lesson from this tragedy is not that we shouldn't clean up contamination. These incidents are infrequent, especially when compared to the number of successful cleanups that have occurred without incident and have done great good for society. And yet, sometimes the risk of cleanup is greater than the risk of leaving contamination in place. It calls to mind the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, described as an "ironic natural park" because, while it is highly contaminated with everything from nerve gas to nasty pesticides, it is also teeming with wildlife in an ecosystem that has returned to the site in force. I joke in class that if it weren't for the waste (and for being federally owned), the area would likely be cleared so yet another big box retailer and strip mall development could come in and pave the whole area over....so maybe humans are worse for the environment than nerve gas. OK, not really. But in all seriousness, Jim Rasband, Jim Salzman, and Mark Squillace raise the question of what is more "natural" in these situations? To leave the site contaminated and allow the wildlife to remain, or to disturb the ecosystem that has arisen and attempt to clean up the contamination? The answer is not so clear. In the long run cleaning up the Gold King Mine seems worth it. But if the risk of greatly damaging the river ecosystem in the short run is great, what steps should be taken? It is not clear that the risk was great here, as this appears to have been a simple accident, but one can imagine situations where the choice is not apparent. And we make these choices quite frequently in environmental law. CERCLA, for example, weighs factors like exposure pathways, proximity to the public, and degree of toxicity to prioritize whether and when a site should be cleaned up. Sometimes, even if toxicity is high, if the public and natural resources are not near and are not being directly harmed, and if exposure pathways are low, it is best to just let the contamination be for a while.
The Chernobyl nuclear site presents a similar conundrum. Trees in the area are absorbing radioactive contamination, which assists with cleanup and also houses wildlife. But what happens when the forest burns? According to Scientific American,"[i]f these forests burn, strontium 90, cesium 137, plutonium 238 and other radioactive elements would be released." The radioactive smoke would likely have profound health impacts hundreds of miles from the site. So do you allow the ecosystem to "self-repair" or do you cut the forest down and dispose of the trees as hazardous waste?
While some caution must be taken at the stage when we decide whether to remediate a contaminated environment or not, the more important lesson here is that government agencies tasked with cleaning up sites are subject to the same risks of harming the environment as the entities they regulate. The EPA and similar agencies, however, should arguably be held to a higher standard. Indeed, much of the backlash against the government for this incident - rightly or wrongly - revolves around "hypocrisy" and the penalties the government would readily dole out if it was industry that made this mistake.
The circumstances surrounding this incident have yet to become clear, and people seeking to criticize environmental regulatory agencies should not view it as an opportune time to lambaste them for trying to do their job. Accidents happen. But the incident is a good reminder that sometimes the cure can be worse than the disease, and if the government plans to implement a cure it had better do its best to ensure that it is prescribing the right medicine.
- Blake Hudson
Government shill protecting bureaucrats. Bah!
The evils of precious metals. . . destroying the environment. This is why I switched to Mintcoin. Energy efficient, fast, clean.
Soft kill.
it became Enemas river....
Smoking gun is presence of MCHM, a liquorice-smelling solvent.
According to ranchers in the area, it smelled of "Yagermeister" in the days prior to the spill. Like dissolving a big blood clot until it just lets go.