EPA Tells Navajo Nation That Colorado Spill Will Take ‘Decades’ To Clean Up

Frustration is mounting among residents of the Four Corners region as EPA seen as slow to respond to contamination

By: Susan Montoya Bryan Ellen Knickmeyer The Associated Press, Published on Wed Aug 12 2015
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All along the way, signs are posted warning people to stay out of the water. Farmers have stopped irrigating and communities have closed water intake systems. Bottled water on the Navajo Nation is becoming scarce.

Begaye said his tribe is bearing the brunt of the massive spill that was accidentally unleashed by EPA workers inspecting the long-idled Gold King mine near Silverton, Colorado, on Aug. 5. Two-thirds of the San Juan River crosses Navajo land before reaching Lake Powell.

“This is a huge issue,” Begaye said. “This river, the San Juan, is our lifeline, not only in a spiritual sense but also it’s an economic base that sustains the people that live along the river.

“When EPA is saying to me it’s going to take decades to clean this up, that is how long uncertainty will exist as we drink the water, as we farm the land, as we put our livestock out there near the river,” he said. “That is just, to me, a disaster of a huge proportion.”

Frustration is mounting throughout the Four Corners region among officials and residents who say the EPA has moved too slowly and hasn’t been forthcoming about the dangers of the spill. The Navajo Nation feels even more slighted given its status as a federally recognized tribe and sovereign nation.


Read more: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2015/08/12/epa-tells-navajo-nation-spill-will-take-decades-to-clean-up.html


EPA Works To Combat Growing Anger After Spill

By Kevin Liptak, CNN White House Producer
Updated 9:26 PM ET, Wed August 12, 2015

Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts (CNN)The Obama administration was scrambling Wednesday to manage growing anger over a government-caused spill on the Animas River in Colorado, announcing investigations into the incident while declaring contaminant levels in the water had returned to pre-accident levels.

Despite the pronouncement, however, damage to the Environmental Protection Agency's standing in the region appeared far from recovered, with state and tribal officials describing a lackluster initial response to the Aug. 5 incident that unleashed 3 million gallons of mustard-colored mine waste into the river near Durango.

Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, said he shared his constituents' anger at the spill and the EPA's subsequent response to it. The Navajo Nation, situated downstream in New Mexico, said they planned to take legal action against the federal government. And the attorneys general of Utah, Colorado and New Mexico were on a fact-finding mission at the spill site before determining their own legal paths forward.

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http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/12/politics/epa-political-fallout/index.html