Discussion for article #239250
So, will we be sending a bill for the spill to those who profited from this “abandoned” mine?
And yeah, extra heavy metals in your drinking water might not kill the animals or the people, but how many IQ points will it knock off the children in the area? How much will it shorten life expectancy or the quality of life in their old age after a lifetime of accumulation?
My question is why was the waste pond allow to stay there and not be processed and filled in?
Here is the reason this mine was never remediated as part of a Superfund Site. Colorado didn’t want it remediated because it would bring attention to the lingering poisons all over Colorado and negatively impact the tourist industry. In that way, Colorado and Durango have created this tragedy, because of their greed. The government and EPA wanted to designate some 10,000 mines in CO as Superfund Sites years ago and begin remediation of them. Log onto Durango Herald for current news. You can be sure the EPA will minimize the poison impacts. But more importantly, you must know that the governor, probably Hickenlooper, denied the remediation proposition by the EPA years ago and has maintained these mine poisons do not threaten the landscape, wildlife and humans. We will be getting lies about this from every corner at this point. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the Durango City Council and county trustees have avoided the publicity for years about the looming catastrophes up in the mountains above them, for monetary / tourist reasons.
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Yes the usual. Those criminals never pay their way in this country. The criminals are protected by congress from culpability to allow mining to make as much profit as possible, with no responsibility for their evil environmental impacts. But, this is the case with all industy in Amerika anymore: destroy the environment to make a $billion by raping our Great Mother and walking away with her treasures free from overhead costs, and leave the poison behind to destroy lives and environment. This is how the country works - irresponsibly and criminally everywhere that industry / energy industry most obviously, is destroying everything for a fast buck. That is exactly what Capitalism is all about: greed and arrogance, laziness and destruction. Look at the mess the Kochs have made near Cleveland with their massive coal garbage piles, for just one of a million examples.
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Simple: Out of sight - out to mind. Oh and it costs money to fix the problem.
Yesterdays’ High County News has a very good article about this:
The High Country News article may be the best one available, however even it fails to answer the question which continues to bother me: “Who was operating the machinery and issuing the instructions which caused the collapse?”
The EPA doesn’t typically use “employees” for this type of work - it’s contracted out, through a bid process. (I believe that local contractors receive extra points in the bid scoring process.)
Anyone have any additional insight on this? We all know that EPA was undertaking the clean up. But who really caused this, and why hasn’t that been disclosed? If the EPA had any sense, they’d make sure that this was part of the national discussion, because it’s certainly going to become a talking point out of the Clown Car during the next R-debate. I can hear it now “Defund the EPA! It caused the type of disaster it was meant to protect us against! Big Government = BAD!!!”
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