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EPA most qualified to lead cleanup

There is no question that the Environmental Protection Agency messed up when its hired contractor working on the Gold King Mine tunnel broke the plug holding back 3 million gallons of mine wastewater. That’s about equal to a one-mile-long, 8-x10-foot mining shaft filled with water building up a tremendous amount of pressure.

As stated by the EPA’s superiors, a comprehensive report will be provided of what went wrong and what to do next.

Yet, at the same time, hundreds of privately owned mines have been leaking wastewater into the Animas for many years. These amounts far exceeded the 3 million gallons of the Gold King spill, silently affecting hundreds of thousands of people downstream.

Some of us old enough know that the EPA was created under President Nixon because of decades of rampant and highly visible pollution by private industry. We may even still remember Ohio’s Cuyahoga River lighting up in flames repeatedly.

Although these days it’s almost impossible to imagine strong bipartisan support for environmental legislation, then politicians of all stripes were responding to real and serious, life-affecting pollution problems in our country.

Before the formation of the EPA, it was cheaper to pollute than to run a non-polluting operation, which is true for our antiquated mining laws. Now, businesses have to follow environmental regulations, often cumbersome and costly, which were only implemented because of rampant abuses. Clean industrial processes actually diminish the need for EPA’s existence.

Knowing the history of industrial pollution, I therefore feel frustrated when politicians and others knock the EPA for cheap publicity. Regulations have been put in place because of abuses and the resulting costs to life and health of all Americans. There is no private business swooping into our area to stop the mine leakage. After this spill, we know that the mines around Silverton have to be cleaned up for the Animas to be again the spectacular, life-supporting river it was and can be.

In the end, the EPA is still the most qualified organization to lead the cleanup of polluting mines.

Werner Heiber

Durango



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