The pictures now familiar around the world of rivers in the Western United States having turned mustard yellow by toxic wastewater from an abandoned mining operation are even more unsettling now we know the Environmental Protection Agency was well aware it could trigger the mess if it wasn’t careful in reopening the Gold King Mine for inspection.
The EPA wasn’t careful, which it has now admitted, but the concession is little comfort for those of us who wonder how the agency could go so far amiss in regard to the “protection” part of its mission. Apologies and promises aside, the incident demands more in the way of accountability.
We can be certain that if it were a private corporation responsible for the mess, say along the lines of a British Petroleum oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the government reaction would be swift and stern. Politicians would demand a reckoning, but what we are hearing from Washington on the leak into the Animas River and downstream is deafening for its lack of volume.
In that context, it’s good that Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes and his Colorado counterpart have toured the area to explore what, if any, legal action their states may take against the EPA for what can be charted as an act of negligence. Parenthetically, the attorneys general would be wasting their time pursuing the conspiracy theory voiced by some Utah lawmakers that the leak was intentionally caused to initiate support for more Superfund designations involving the thousands of inactive mines dotting the Western landscape.
As for those mines that continue to pose environmental threats, it is unfortunate the EPA and other entities, including several state governments, have been unable to get on the same page when it comes to remediating the threat. There has been resistance from both mining and environmental interests in pursuing massive Superfund designations. Environmental groups are afraid the stigma of Superfund status would be a deterrent to tourism in the area. Cleanup is also an expensive proposition, in the range of $50 billion by some estimates.
But we can see in bright yellow hues the impact of letting the problem continue to go unattended. Environmentalist organizations, which typically look upon the EPA as an ally in Western conservation matters, have begun to call upon the agency to more aggressively pursue a cleanup plan. But the scope of the problem may require congressional action. So may a precise examination into the breakdown of EPA operational protocol that resulted in the leak.
We hope that any momentum in getting to the bottom of the problem and coming up with a way to prevent a recurrence doesn’t fade away with the yellow sludge let loose into some of the West’s most fragile and picturesque water ways.