I’d think the heavy metals will reduce themselves rather quickly but you don’t want the drink the effluent just right now. This could have been corrected quickly.
I am not sure what you mean by that but I don’t think the flow of toxic water could have been stopped easily once it started.
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 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.
Once they breach the wall of that tunnel there was no stopping it. If it is flowing at 500 gallons per minute four days after the first breach that tells you that the height of the water above the breach has to be substantial and the pressure of the water has to be enormous.
You are not just going to put a cork in the hole. Not being there I can’t really say but the only chance they might have had was to dam the creek and try to contain the contaminated water. But then I don’t know what the surrounding land is like.