Posted on 08/09/2015 7:00:02 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Reuters) - Some 3 million gallons of toxic wastewater, triple previous estimates, have poured from a defunct Colorado gold mine into local streams since a team of Environmental Protection Agency workers accidentally triggered the spill last week, EPA officials said on Sunday.
The discharge, containing high concentrations of heavy metals such as arsenic, mercury and lead, was continuing to flow at the rate of 500 gallons per minute on Sunday, four days after the spill began at the Gold King Mine, the EPA said.
An unspecified number of residents living downstream of the spill who draw their drinking supplies from their private wells have reported water discoloration, but there has been no immediate evidence of harm to human health, livestock or wildlife, EPA officials told reporters in a telephone conference call.
Still, residents were advised to avoid drinking or bathing in water drawn from wells in the vicinity, and the government was arranging to supply water to homes and businesses in need.
The spill began on Wednesday after an EPA inspection team was called to the abandoned mine near the town of Silverton in southwestern Colorado to examine previously existing wastewater seepage.
As workers excavated loose debris at the site, they inadvertently breached the wall of a mine tunnel, unleashing a flow of the orange-tinged slurry that cascaded into Cement Creek and then into the Animas River downstream.
The town of Durango, Colorado, roughly 50 miles south of the spill site, shut off its intakes of river water as a precaution, according to the EPA.
By Friday, the main plume of the spill had traveled some 75 miles south to the New Mexico border, prompting utilities in the towns of Aztec and Farmington to shut off their intakes from the Animas as well, local authorities said.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Animas River (Duranglers.com fishing guide website)One of the last free-flowing rivers in the state of Colorado, the Animas River is a unique and rare treasure. With the newest and one of the best Gold Medal Water fly-fishing sections in Colorado, the Animas is a river that should be on your list of places to fish.
The Animas River is evidence of how human perception of the landscape has evolved over the past 250 years. Today the Animas Valley and the river itself seem alive, bountiful, and full of beauty. When Juan Rivera passed through this corner of Colorado in 1765, he named the river El Rio de las Animas Perdidas en Purgatorio, “The River of the Lost Souls in Hell.” To Rivera and his Spanish compatriots, the valley was remote, bleak, and had little to offer them in the way of riches.
(more at the link)
I doubt that there is one live fish left in those waters.
Well, arsenic (rat poison) will kill you outright, and mercury will gradually drive you insane (cf. Lewis Carroll's mad hatter).
If it is 500 gpm now it would have been more on the first day because the pressure would have been greater. But nice calculation.
Of course there is no way to determine how much water is in the mine without knowing the dimension or the pressure/flow of the water out of the mine without knowing the height of the vertical column of water above the opening.
They could still try damming the creek to at least stop the flow of the contamination downstream.
You can bet if this had been caused by a profit making business that the EPA would be demanding immediate action to stem the flow down river.
It is surprising that they did not have some kind of plan for just this kind of event.
It pretty common for abandoned mines to fill up with water. They should have determined the status of the water level in the mine before they ever started poking around.
Looks like they intentionally dug at the retaining berm until it failed.
Which is what they would have had to do to begin with.
That additional rainwater runoff contamination would only be trace amounts, probably statistically insignificant. What’s flowing now directly from the mine is problematic, however.
Actually most shaft mines have to have pumps running continutously to keep water out of the mine.
If the mine had been inactive for an extended period you would have to expect that the mine have filled with water.
Like I said above they should have thoroughly understood the status of the mine before they started poking around.
The San Juan River flows into Lake Powell, which empties into the Colorado River, which supplies 5 million acre-feet of fresh water to drought-starved LA.”
DING DING DING We have a winner!
The Animas flows into the San Juan which flows into the Colorado. The Colorado supplies 90% of the water for Las Vegas and over 50% of the water in California south of the Tehachipi. This has the potential for an evironmental disaster of monumental proportions. The water supply for millions of people in the southwest is threatened unless the CoE does something.
“We were in Durango the last week of July and noted the Animus river banks had an unnatural orange deposit. I was wondering what it was.”
That was actually a natural algal or bacterial mat. Those are quite common in the western streams, especially those that have variable flows.
Maybe it will kill the Myxobolus cerebralis - whirling disease - infected trout planted by another government agency, the Colorado DOW (now Parks and Wildlife).
Congress needs to defund and abolish the EPA, in January of 2017. It’s a useless organization and, like the NLRB, was something created by Socialists to control Americans.
Article mentions people are being warned not to swim in, or drink from the San Juan arm of lake Powell.
The crud has already reached lake Powell.
EPA: No health risks to wildlife ...
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???? Then why ban the drinking or bathing by humans, if it’s not harmful?
What about the poor wildlife which will be poisoned from this horrific event? Was this a common, stupid “goof” by the EPA, which resulted in the release of this poison? Where are the deer, birds, bears, etc. going to get water? I assume all the aquatic life for absolutely miles will be decimated. And what about the people who depend on this water for drinking, irrigation, etc. This is just a terrible thing to happen.
This strikes me as planned.
Another crisis—a waste crisis—that cannot be allowed to go to waste.
EPA will now demand increased funding to counter the threat of complete destruction of the water supplies of Western States.
For the children, ya know.
FMCDH(BITS)
Thanks.
Eliminate the EPA!
Depends on the groundwater level in the surrounding rock. If there are mountains surrounding the shaft or adit, you’d have a pretty constant flow of water. In this case, the water level seems to have been above the ground level and dammed up.
How does this government-caused pollution event compare to such pollution events over the past years? Is the idiot-run government responsible for the worse pollution event? Will the “workers” and their supervisors be held responsible and prosecuted for their irresponsibility in causing this ecological disaster? Will any of these government fools be fired, lose their pensions, be jailed or be hounded by the public for their incompetence and irresponsibility? If you did this, how do you think you would be treated?
It supplies our water here in Phoenix also.
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