A bipartisan group of senators are demanding answers from the Environmental Protection Agency on its role in a toxic water spill that polluted the river systems of at least three states.
“It is our belief that there was a lack of transparency, coordination and communication in the events leading up to and following EPA’s spill of approximately three million gallons of contaminated water into Cement Creek and the Animas River,” a group of six Republican and Democrats said in a letter to EPA Inspector General Arthur A. Elkins Jr.
The Republican senators include Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch of Utah and Cory Gardner of Colorado and Mike Lee of Utah, while the Democrats include Michael Bennet of Colorado and New Mexico’s Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich.
Although the lawmakers said they welcomed Monday’s launch of an investigation into the spill by the inspector general, they also want answers to a number of questions regarding the EPA contractors who were implicated in the catastrophic spill.
The spill began Aug. 5 in Colorado when an EPA contractor ruptured a wastewater containment wall at an abandoned gold mine. The accident unleashed millions of gallons of water laced with mercury, lead and other heavy metals into the Animas and San Juan rivers. The spill created a toxic yellow plume that could be seen for miles, and will likely take years to clean up, according to officials.
The senators say the spill resulted from actions EPA was taking at the abandoned mine that were intended to begin the clean-up process there. Instead, the agency’s actions created more pollution, they said.
“The EPA’s actions at the Gold King Mine were intended to reduce the continual flow of acid mine drainage from mine sites in the Animas River basin,” the letter says. “Communities in the basin have long sought solutions to improve water quality. But clearly, the EPA’s execution of this project fell far short of the standards to which any cleanup operation should adhere.”
The senators say the inspector general’s investigation and report into the matter will assist in determining the details of the accident, while providing an “opportunity to improve future remediation projects, and prevent spills of this nature at other legacy mines across the West.”
The EPA oversees at least 4,000 mines such as the one that caused the spill, according to the agency’s website.
The senators want the inspector general to include specific information in the report it intends to generate. The letter lists more than a dozen questions they want answered, including specific details on the criteria EPA uses in hiring contractors; how it assesses the expertise of the contractors and EPA employees used in clean-up work; and “EPA’s legal obligations and current policies and guidelines on reporting a release of a hazardous substance.”
They also want to know what EPA’s legal obligations are regarding its communication with tribal, state and local government agencies “when the agency creates a release of a hazardous substance.”
Many of the Democrats on the letter were the first to be critical of EPA’s lackluster performance in responding to state and local governments’ requests for assistance.
“Including these questions in an [inspector general] report, along with a full investigation of the Gold King Mine accident, will help prevent future spills of this magnitude and ensure that recovery for tribal, state and local economies is expeditiously put on the best path forward,” the senators said.
