Posted on 01/06/2017 4:41:58 PM PST by Olog-hai
Nearly 540 tons of metals — mostly iron and aluminum — contaminated the Animas River over nine hours during a massive wastewater spill from an abandoned Colorado gold mine, the Environmental Protection Agency said Friday in a new report on the 2015 blowout that turned rivers in three states a sickly yellow.
The total amount of metals entering the river system was comparable to levels during one or two days of high spring runoff, although the concentration of metals was significantly higher at the spill’s peak, the report said. […]
New Mexico Environment Secretary Butch Tongate accused the EPA of using the taxpayer-funded report to try to defend its actions. The state has sued the agency over the spill. …
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
Is this the water we steal for SoCal?
“Is this the water we steal for SoCal?”
It used to be:
“Animas River is a 126-mile-long river tributary of the San Juan River, part of the Colorado River System.”
“The river’s free-flowing status ended when the Animas-La Plata Water Project was completed in 2015. The project pumps water over a low pass to fill a reservoir, Lake Nighthorse, in Ridges Basin to satisfy Southern Ute tribal water rights claims associated with the Colorado Ute Settlement Act amendments of 2000.”
I’ve panned for gold in the Animas near Farmington, NM.
Maybe the EPA should sue the EPA out of existence over this violation.
ping
Colorado Ping ( Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from the list.)
If this had happened 2000-2008, it would have been BUSH’S FAULT, BUSH’S FAULT, BUSH’S FAULT. But Obama is the new Teflon president.
But the media assure us we’ve had no scandals during the Obama administration. If this had happened under a Republican administration, it would have been considered a major scandal, and would have been blamed on Bush and his “cronies.”
540 tons? Who knows how much, really.
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