No Accountability One Year After the EPA-caused, DOI-approved
Gold King Mine Disaster
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 5, 2016
CONTACT: Elise Daniel (202) 226-9019
Washington, D.C. –Today marks the one-year anniversary of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Gold King Mine blowout near Silverton, Colorado. House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) released the following statement:
“A year later, the Obama Administration still won’t tell us the whole truth. Accounts of events from Interior and EPA have been inconsistent and artfully misleading. The EPA insists they had no plan to dig out the plug, but they did and without testing. There has been zero accountability on the part of the Administration, the only thing that has changed since last August is their story.
“EPA's disaster dumped hundreds of tons of pollutants into a river that flows across four states - affecting farmers, treatment systems for safe drinking water and livelihoods, but no one has been punished. These communities, especially in Colorado, New Mexico and Navajo Nation, deserve better. They deserve answers.”
Background:
On August 5, 2015, an EPA crew triggered a mine blowout dumping three million gallons of acid mine drainage contaminated with metals into the Animas River. Contaminated water reached the San Juan River impacting Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and Navajo Nation.
Following the incident, EPA pledge accountability and corrective action. The internal reviews issued by the Administration, EPA’s Internal Review and Addendum, and the Department of the Interior’s (DOI) Technical Evaluation, offered shifting accounts of the events leading up to the spill. They contained numerous errors, omissions and inconsistencies, some of which are not attributable to error or incompetence alone.
During this time, the Committee held hearings, requested and reviewed thousands of pages of documents from the Administration, issued two subpoenas, and conducted its own investigative report documenting EPA's and DOI's inaccurate and conflicting accounting of the events. The Committee also sent a letter to the EPA Inspector General (IG) raising concerns that EPA officials engaged in activities that could hinder the IG’s investigation.
Committee Highlights:
On September 17, 2015, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, testified before a joint hearing, stating multiple times that the “independent” DOI review would provide authoritative answers as to how and why the spill occurred and whether or not negligence or criminal conduct were contributing factors.
Far from the "independent" report EPA’s McCarthy testified it would be, DOI’s review omitted reference to critical issues and facts, including any explanation for the EPA’s failure to conduct hydrostatic pressure testing before excavating the Gold King Mine adit.
The peer reviews of DOI’s report, including one authored by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, strongly criticized the scope and methodology of DOI’s review, including the report’s omission of what "eventually caused the failure."
On December 9, 2015, testifying before the Committee, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Deputy Commissioner for Operations David Palumbo, discussed these concerns and others.
Since that time, it has been disclosed that the Department of Justice is conducting a criminal investigation of the incident. The EPA’s Office of the Inspector General is also conducting civil and criminal investigations.
Click here to read more about the Committee’s oversight efforts
(Denver, Colo. – August 5, 2016) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is awarding more than $710,000 to reimburse state, tribal and local response costs for actions taken in Colorado and Utah associated with the August 5, 2015 Gold King Mine release near Silverton, Colo. These funds include costs incurred for various activities associated with the release response, including field evaluations, water quality sampling, laboratory analyses, and personnel. EPA continues to evaluate state, tribal and local response costs and has reimbursed nearly $1.4M to date through cooperative agreements established with partners.
Today’s announcement is part of EPA’s ongoing evaluation of costs consistent with the Agency’s authorities and the requirements under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) or Superfund. The funds made available this week reimburse documented and allowable response costs submitted by government partners, including $258K to the State of Utah, $161K to the State of Colorado, $106K to the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, $99K to La Plata County, $43K to the City of Durango, and $43K to San Juan County.
One year after the Gold King Mine release, EPA continues to invest resources and work collaboratively with impacted stakeholders to achieve permanent solutions to issues associated with abandoned mines, prevent future releases, and protect water resources. The Agency has dedicated more than $29M to respond to the incident and provide for continued water quality monitoring in the Animas and San Juan Rivers. The majority of these funds are being used to stabilize the mine adit and mitigate ongoing acid mine drainage at the Gold King Mine. EPA is also providing more than $2.6M to states and tribes to develop a better understanding of the overall water quality conditions in the Animas and San Juan rivers and support real-time monitoring of water resources and to improve the notification process for any future incidents.
Contamination from more than 160,000 abandoned mines in the West continues to pose costly and complex challenges for the region’s states, tribes and communities. EPA is collaborating with partners on the best practices and lessons to address the legacy of abandoned mines. The Upper Animas Watershed has historically received high loadings of metals associated with the discharge of 5.4 million gallons per day from mining, highly mineralized formations, and mines in the area. For the communities impacted by the decades of contaminated mine drainage into the Animas and San Juan River watersheds, EPA has proposed a Superfund National Priorities Listing for the Bonita Peak Mining District, which includes the Gold King Mine, and is committed to pursuing collaborative approaches to improve water quality impacted by pollution that crosses state and tribal borders.
For more information on EPA’s Gold King Mine efforts, visit https://www.epa.gov/goldkingmine/one-year-after-gold-king-mine-incident-retrospective-epas-efforts-restore-and-protect.
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