Discussion for article #239275
An entire river of orange juice?! Oh wait, just another toxic spill. Move along, everybody, nothing to see here!
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The EPA has so far been unable to determine whether humans or aquatic life face health risks from the pollution.
We are talking about heavy metals that have long since been known about. It’s my understanding that the reason the EPA was there in the first place is that there may have been discussions as to declaring the old mine a Superfund site which apparently was being fought by the locals. No more fight, now.
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JarJarBush and his Band Of Thugs , have been methodically weakening the EPA…
ThankeeJe$u$!
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They could bottle it, and call it Tang.
“The sludge moved so quickly that it would not have caused significant health effects to animals that consumed the water, EPA toxicologist Deborah McKean said…”
…from her moon suit, behind a containment wall, before hastily abandoning the press conference.
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I occasionally read some RW sites to keep abreast of their POV. It’s funny how they are blaming this solely on the EPA, without mentioning that this is a cleanup effort for a mine that has been closed since the 20s.
And of course pay no attention to the coincidence that these same people want to return us to the same level of lax regulation that were in effect in the 20s and allowed this mess in the first place.
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What a monumental fuck up. And a gift to the “government can do no right” blowhards. I haven’t been following this story closely so maybe this has already happened, but I hope the administration comes out strongly and quickly with cleanup plans, armies of workers helping affected communities, 800-numbers for citizens to call, FEMA water trucks - whatever is required.
Everything that BP did during the Gulf oil spill - do it the opposite way.
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You wouldn’t hear or don’t hear this kind of outrage and complaints when it is an oil train, coal dust, sludge and spill from drilling by the Wrong Wing and their shills in Congress. Even now the oil and energy corporations and ALEC are working to get bills passed that would allow utilities to charge customers extra if they use solar or alternative energy sources.
In addition it seems to escape them that if you cut all of the resources and staff that agencies can’t do the jobs they are supposed to do like the EPA, IRS and VA. What brain trust spawned these evil creatures?
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Gee, this crap has been sitting there for 92 years, who wouldathunk it’d be a problem someday? Cement creek, (Where the spill orignated) is already “free” of aquatic life due to waste from area mines and the naturally occurring metals in the area that make the creek acidic and enriched in metals and sulfate.
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Looks like they ought to rename that waterway The Poison Mustard River.
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I live in Cortez, 50 miles west of Durango. The scuttlebutt has it that Colorado has chosen not to allow the feds to designate some 10,000 abandoned mines in Colorado as Superfund Sites to avoid tourist impact and negative publicity. That was the decision many years ago and is sustained to this minute. We’ll see some political b.s. right along and plenty of distraction if not outright lies. Durango did not want negative publicity regarding toxic wastes surrounding the town so that rafters / hikers / vacationers would remain clueless as to the nightmare waiting in the surroundings. I will not be surprised if the EPA takes the hit for this when, in reality, the state of Colorado and towns like Durango and Silverton have resisted toxic waste cleanup for decades. The GOP will use this as fodder to dump the EPA, or at least continue to try to dump it while meanwhile de-funding it. Try to see thru the lies and b.s. that are inevitable as they are trumpeted around the news cycles. And, this article is wrong about poisoning / polluting drinking water. We have seen on the news here that private wells near the river are now contaminated with this sewage poisonous sludge waste - and folks are not happy, many folks, Navajos and Utes included, and me too. Happily, Cortez gets its water from the Dolores River. So far, so good here. But, we could see that same tragedy hit us anytime due to the Colorado government’s irresponsible environmental policies.
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That’s right. The EPA will be blamed for this mess. The GOP will ride this beast into the ground and beat its drums against government regulations and oversight. But, read my comments elsewhere in this section, the state and towns themselves are responsible for this outrage, not the EPA. The EPA was trying to do the right thing on shoe string budgets. Blame Congress, the State of Colorado, and the towns in Colorado who wanted to hide the toxic environment forever. Now, the state will find it hard to avoid negative publicity. I don’t know how many governors have dissuaded the EPA from designating these 10,000 abandoned mines as Superfund Sites, but that time period has got to be decades by now, and continuing to avoid cleanup under Gov. Hickenlooper, another Colorado government sold out slob.
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Everything that BP did during the Gulf oil spill - do it the opposite way.
Trouble is, as hard as it is to clean up oil from water, it’s a lot harder to clean up water out of water.
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The price of unregulated commerce? At least somebody made money, eh?
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The EPA has so far been unable to determine whether humans or aquatic life face health risks from the pollution.
That’s bullshit, subterfuge and childish wishful thinking.
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I live right next to this mess. It doesn’t smell and it washed right down river but it has to end up somewhere and the traces left along the way and soaking in will last a long time.
And it sucks, we were going to go tubing last weekend but there was no way as the orange was still very bright in the water. The Animas river has had trace elements in it since forever including uranium. Right where the biggest whitewater is in town the mountain is called smelter, named after the old smelter that pulled out the metals many years ago. That site has been cleaned up and the waste has been encapsulated behind the mountain. Kind of out of sight out of mind.
The town where the spill originated has deep red in all the rock formations and it’s like that for many miles. That is why there are so many abandoned mines and why the town is named, Silverton’.
We have an old coal burning train that takes tourists there something like 4 times a day in the summer, it is huge for all local economies at all points of the Narrow Gauge Railroad. Silverton would not exist really without it and Durango would be hurting as well.