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We were lucky the EPA caused the spill

The greater Durango community and water users downstream on the Animas River should be thanking their lucky stars that the Environmental Protection Agency precipitated the Gold King Mine spill before it happened on its own without any intervention. And I’m not being facetious.

The Gold King Mine was a disaster in the waiting. Imagine if the spill had occurred at night with no one around. We could have awakened one morning with a lot more orange sludge in area irrigation ditches and in our municipal water supply. Imagine the hysteria then! Furthermore, we would have no one to blame and no one to pay for damages.

As it is, we have legions of scientists and environmental experts working to assure our safety, and an agency with a big fat pipeline to the federal treasury so that we may be reimbursed for the damages the mine spill caused. I rather doubt that the owners of the Gold King Mine have those kinds of resources, and they’d probably declare bankruptcy to avoid any payments.

As a 39-year resident of the Durango area, I remember other mine spills and flooding events that temporarily polluted the Animas River. The river recovered. So did the town. Perhaps that’s why so many of us longtime residents aren’t so appalled by the most recent spill.

What does gall us is the ongoing pollution of waterways by 100-year-old abandoned mines that state and federal agencies have failed to address. The Gold King Mine spill certainly isn’t the first. I fear it won’t be the last.

So, I offer a truly sincere (and I mean it) thank you to the EPA for serving as the catalyst to remind water users that we continue to live with the legacy of unregulated mining. Perhaps now we can get serious about addressing the continuing pollution in the Silverton Mining District.

Deborah Uroda

Durango



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