The Environmental Protection Agency added the mine where it caused a major toxic wastewater spill last year to a new list of Superfund sites.
The important designation opens the mine and nearly 50 others in its vicinity to a multimillion-dollar, federally backed cleanup effort.
Last year’s Gold King Mine spill in Silverton, Colo., sent 3 million gallons of contaminated wastewater into creeks and rivers, sullying the waterways of three Western states.
The Navajo Nation sued the agency last month for damages the spill caused to its tribal crop lands. A number local officials in Colorado have been weighing the damage the spill caused to the state’s tourism industry.
The EPA designated the area where the mine spill occurred as a Superfund site. It was part of a broad list of new sites it is adding, or proposing to add, to the federal cleanup program. But it made no effort to point out the significance of the Gold King Mine designation.
The listing reads: “Bonita Peak Mining District in San Juan County, Colo.” The designation was buried in a list that included new project designations that extend from California to Puerto Rico as part of the program’s National Priorities List.
The sites being added to Superfund program Wednesday “pose the highest risk to the environment and public health,” said Mathy Stanislaus, the EPA’s head of emergency management.
“By cleaning up these sites, not only are we benefiting the health of our people and our ecosystems, in many cases, we are benefiting local economies,” he said. “Many Superfund sites can be safely redeveloped, providing communities with new revenue streams.”
