ABOVE, THE EPA "EDITED" FILM OF THE MOMENT THE COMPANY THEY HIRED FOR CLEANUP RELEASED THE WATER FROM THE GOLD KING MINE.
THE EPA WAS LATER BUSTED FOR BLEEPING OUT WHAT THE CONTRACTORS SAID.
THE AFTERMATH CAN BE SEEN BELOW FROM A FLYOVER VIDEO BY CNN, BUT THE REAL DAMAGE HAS ONLY RECENTLY BEEN UNCOVERED.
THE EPA WAS LATER BUSTED FOR BLEEPING OUT WHAT THE CONTRACTORS SAID.
THE AFTERMATH CAN BE SEEN BELOW FROM A FLYOVER VIDEO BY CNN, BUT THE REAL DAMAGE HAS ONLY RECENTLY BEEN UNCOVERED.
DAYS LATER, THE CONTRACTOR AND THE EPA WERE BOTH STILL LYING, AS CBS SHOWS IN THE VIDEO BELOW.
THE CONTRACTED COMPANY LIED ABOUT HOW MUCH WATER WAS RELEASED FROM THE MINE, KNEW THERE WAS A CONSTANT LEAK FROM THAT HOLE FOR MONTHS, AT LEAST, AND THE EPA WAS COMPLICIT IN THE INITIAL "REPORTING" OF THE PREVENTABLE DISASTER.
The blowout from the abandoned Gold King Mine, five miles north of Silverton, spewed 3 million gallons of acid mine water and heavy metals into Colorado and Utah rivers, turning the waterways a sickly yellow-orange.
Environmental Restoration LLC was excavating the Gold King Mine in Colorado August 5, 2015 at the direction of EPA officials, which caused the flood of toxic waste to poison drinking water for three states and into the Navajo Nation of New Mexico and Arizona.
Feb 11, 2016 - The House Committee on Natural Resources released a damning report on the EPA and how they handled the August 2015 Gold King Mine spill..
FROM U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT:
EPA to Blame for 'Preventable' Gold King Mine Spill, Interior Dept .
EPA accused at hearing of doctoring video from Gold King Mine spill
WHAT DID THE EPA DO AFTER THIS?
THE EPA AWARDED THAT COMPANY RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT SPILL ALMOST $3 MILLION.
AWARDED IT FOR CONTAMINATING THE RIVERS IN 3 STATES AND THE NAVAJO NATION!
WATER IS VERY SCARCE IN THIS AREA OF AMERICA, AND EVERY DROP IS VERY IMPORTANT TO RESIDENTS THERE.
IN ESSENCE, THE EPA PAID FOR THE POISONING OF THE DRINKING WATER, THE KILLING OF EVERYTHING IN EVERY RIVER AND STREAM AFFECTED BY THAT SPILL.
BUT THE EPA IS FUNDED BY CONGRESS, WHICH MEANS TAXPAYER DOLLARS, SO ALL OF US WHO PAY TAXES ARE PAYING FOR THIS....ALMOST $30 MILLION, SO FAR, AND THAT WAS EARLIER THIS YEAR, BEFORE THE NEW SPILL.
AND THE EPA ADMITS THAT IT DID AWARD THE COMPANY THAT CAUSED THIS ONGOING DISASTER.
The EPA internally acknowledged the award and crafted a response to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s (TheDCNF) finding, according to emails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, but the response was never sent to the news organization.
“It just slipped through the cracks,” EPA spokeswoman Melissa Harrison told TheDCNF 32 minutes after deadline. “It was a mistake on our behalf.”
The EPA response uncovered by TheDCNF defended the funding by claiming that the contractor was used for disaster assessments, rather than cleanup.
“EPA’s decision to reward the firm involved in the Gold King Mine disaster shows they’re more concerned about protecting themselves and their friends than the environment,” Adam Andrzejewski, CEO and founder of transparency group Open The Books, told TheDCNF Thursday.
TheDCNF asked the EPA to explain the awards and gave the agency the opportunity to defend the funding. Agency officials responded internally almost immediately, but never provided comment for TheDCNF’s story, which was published nearly 39 hours later.
THEY HAD TIME TO MAKE THE NEWS DEADLINE AND CHOSE NOT TO.
“The EPA itself is a Superfund site – sadly, it’s a cesspool of corruption, cronyism and incompetence,” Andrzejewski said. “In the real world, poor performance is punished but with the federal government it is too often tolerated and applauded. The EPA is one of the worst offenders.”
“I don’t have a response ready for you yet on ER LLC,” St. Clair wrote in an email to TheDCNF. “I do think we’ll have solid answers to your questions, including breakdowns of funding. Can you hold this story off until we can get you something? Hopefully tonight/tomorrow am, although with the holiday it may not be until Thurs. (I’ve been leaning on people to get it to me tonight.)”
That message was sent at 5:29 p.m. – six hours after Ostrander’s email – and was the last correspondence with TheDCNF regarding the story. TheDCNF held the story for an extra day.
Sandoval responded to Ostrander at 8:21 p.m. with a more thorough funding breakdown, but that was never sent to TheDCNF. The article was published at 12:07 a.m. on Nov. 12.
The EPA also did not respond to requests for comment on its failure to respond.
[This article first appeared on The Daily Caller.]
Most critically, the EPA contractors working at the site chose not to bore a hole to physically check the amount of water inside
the mine before digging – a step that previously had been taken to
successfully reopen another mine in 2011.
"Had it been done, the plan to open the mine would have
been revised, and the blowout would not have occurred," said the review,
which was requested by the EPA and performed by the Interior
Department's Bureau of Reclamation.FROM THE DENVER POST:
Federal authorities have confirmed for the first time that a criminal investigation into the 2015 Gold King Mine spill is underway, saying their probe involves the U.S. Attorney’s Office and came at the request of members of Congress.
Documents reviewed by The Denver Post on Monday indicate the probe has been in progress for nearly a year.
Jeffrey Lagda, spokesman for the inspector general’s office, said the OIG is working with the U.S. Attorney’s Office on the criminal investigation. It was “based on requests from several members of the House and Senate,” he added.
AND THERE'S A NEW "SPILL".
EPA Reports ANOTHER Mine Waste Spill At Gold King Mine
Daily Caller - 2 days ago
An agency spokeswoman said, “discharged water and solids that entered Cement Creek had been treated with lime and consisted of precipitated metals in the form of metal hydroxides which will quickly settle out of the creek.”
The whole incident lasted about 2 hours.
Gold King Mine Blowout Was No Accident | The Daily Caller
ON AUGUST 16, FOX ANNOUNCED THAT THE NAVAJO NATION HAS SUED THE DAMNABLE EPA.
Navajo Nation sues EPA over toxic Gold King Mine spill
How the Gold King Mine Spill Threatens the Navajo Nation
Today, the reservation counts more than 300,000 people as residents, all dependent on the river water for everything.
From a spot near downtown Farmington, New Mexico, the San Juan meanders west into Navajo country.
The dry, brown earth near the reservation’s eastern border washes into thickets of piñon less than 50 miles south, which in turn wash into mesas and brush clustered off the remote roads that connect these tribal communities.
The sky is a complement to Mother Earth, and the rivers are the veins that sustain the Navajo Nation: the San Juan. The Colorado. The Little Colorado.
Over time, through generations, the water has endured. It is sacred to the Navajo in a way the rest of America perhaps cannot understand. It is the heart of a civilization.
The San Juan River is just one expression of both the past and the future of the Navajo, a ribbon that ties people together through time.
By the evening of August 7, news of the spill had made its way across the reservation. Over the next few days, folks visited the river. The sludge that streamed through the Animas had now mixed with clear water in the San Juan River, which transformed into a milky plume as it flowed into Shiprock.
Almost immediately, the Navajo Nation shut off the two irrigation systems that feed off the San Juan River. Severing that lifeline for ranchers and farmers so deep into the summer was disastrous.
Hay was being cut. Alfalfa had just been planted. Corn and melons were already bursting from the land, a bounty that would usually make its way to tables of families and neighbors and to be sold at roadside stops on the reservation. But the San Juan was flowing with aluminum, arsenic, cadmium, copper, lead, and other heavy metals. The EPA warned people to stay away.
One hundred miles southwest of Shiprock, in the Navajo Nation capital of Window Rock, Arizona, tribal president Russell Begaye and his staff tried to grasp the scope of the disaster. “We are dealing with the livelihood of our people,” Begaye says now, “but we don’t want to give this land to our children and grandchildren because it’s tainted.” Protecting the reservation was the top priority, but there wasn’t a contingency plan for river contamination.
Three Navajos died by suicide in the month after the spill, which Begaye blamed on the psychological effects of the Gold King Mine blowout. The disaster contaminated the tribe’s mind, Begaye says, and the lack of federal accountability only reinforced to the Navajo that they are (at best) an afterthought.
BACK IN MAY, NEW MEXICO STARTED ITS LAWSUIT AGAINST THE EPA.
THE GOVERNOR HAD DECLARED A STATE OF EMERGENCY WHEN THE SPILL FIRST HAPPENED, BUT NOTHING WOULD STOP THE POLLUTION FROM SPREADING AND KILLING AND CAUSING UNTOLD SUFFERING.
New Mexico Is 1st State To Sue EPA Over Gold King Mine Spill
In the weeks following the blowout, Governor John Hickenlooper also declared a disaster emergency in Colorado.
But, as it turns out, government officials in Colorado may also have been complicit in all this.
EPA report links Colorado to errors that led to Gold King Mine Spill
MEANWHILE, BACK ON REPUBLICAN-CONTROLLED CAPITOL HILL, THE ENVIRONMENT-HATING GOP MEMBERS ARE HAVING A FIELD DAY.
THIS CAN HELP THEM END THE EPA.
McCain seeks criminal investigation of EPA: Gold King Mine
BUT THE EPA HAS ANOTHER FRIEND, THE USGS HAS COME TO THE RESCUE WITH PUBLICATIONS ABOUT THE HISTORICAL METAL CONTENT OF THESE WATERWAYS, TRYING TO MAKE IT LOOK "NOT SO BAD".
The upper Animas River watershed near Silverton, Colorado, has been an area of extensive interdisciplinary USGS research on abandoned mine lands.
Prior to mining in this area, the mineralized rocks were natural sources of metals and acidity to streams.
Historical mining also contributed to the metals and acidity in streams of this area.
Multiple USGS papers have been published about the environmental effects of unmined mineralized areas and historical mine sites in the Animas River watershed. These reports, and the data contained therein, provide a critical environmental baseline against which the effects of the Gold King Mine release can be assessed. The locations, types of data, and frequency of data vary based on the objectives of the USGS program or study for which they were collected.
NO ONE KNOWS HOW LONG OR TO WHAT EXTENT THIS PREVENTABLE SPILL WILL AFFECT THE WATERWAYS IT CONTAMINATED.
NO ONE KNOWS WHAT LONG-TERM EFFECTS IT WILL HAVE ON RIVER LIFE, ON THE LAND, ON THE PEOPLE, BUT WE DO KNOW THE POLLUTION LEVELS ARE STILL HIGH.
FROM UTAH, THIS REPORT IN JUNE OF THIS YEAR:
Update June 21, 2016
Results of DEQ Water Quality Sampling during Spring Runoff.
Flow in the San Juan Rivers is high due to spring runoff and approached peak flow conditions on June 5th, 2016. DEQ has evaluated weekly data collected during spring runoff for the months of February, March, April, and the first week of June, 2016. These data were screened against recreational, drinking water, agricultural, and aquatic life criteria. Aluminum concentrations regularly exceed aquatic life criteria at most locations for most sampling events. Total dissolved solids was exceeded in most samples and molybdenum was exceeded once for agricultural uses at the Montezuma Creek monitoring location.
THE EPA HAS BEEN ACCUSED OF CORRUPTION AND TAKING BRIBES AS FAR BACK AS MY MEMORY EXTENDS.
IT HAS BEEN SUED SO MANY TIMES BY CITIZENS IT FAILED TO PROTECT THAT WE COULDN'T BEGIN TO LIST ITS FAILURES.
DOES OUR NATIONAL ENVIRONMENT NEED PROTECTING, DO WE?
OF COURSE, BUT THE EPA WILL NEVER DO ITS JOB AND CONGRESS IS ITCHING TO DISMANTLE IT.
AFTER IT'S GONE, IT WILL BE A FREE-FOR-ALL AS NO REGULATIONS, WHETHER ENFORCED OR NOT, WILL BE IN PLACE TO STOP THE GREEDY CORPORATIONS FROM DESTROYING WHAT'S LEFT AFTER ALL THESE YEARS OF NON-PROTECTION BY THE EPA.
WHAT WILL AMERICANS HOPE FOR AFTER THE EPA IS GONE?
AIR THAT WON'T BE FIT TO BREATHE, WATER THAT WON'T BE FIT TO DRINK, DEAD RIVERS, CONTAMINATED LAND, AND A DEAD COUNTRY.
AFTER ALL, CONGRESS' BIGGEST CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTORS ARE CORPORATIONS AND THE MEN WHO OWN THEM.
FOR EXAMPLE:
Congressional Corruption Rescues Biofuel Profits
THERE WILL BE PAYBACK ON A RECORD SCALE ONCE THE EPA IS DEAD, BUT IT WAS WORTHLESS ANYWAY.
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