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Commissioners drafting co-opt agreement to collect reimbursement from EPA

La Plata has spent $178,000 in response to Gold King Mine spill
Water flows out of the Gold King Mine north of Silverton on Aug. 18. La Plata County officials are in the process of creating an agreement to recoup costs it had to deal with after millions of gallons of contaminated water flooded the Animas River.

La Plata County officials and staff have about two weeks to craft a co-opt agreement in order to recoup money spent in the aftermath of last month’s mine spill in Silverton.

County staff reports the county has spent about $178,000 responding to the Aug. 5 Gold King Mine spill, which unleashed about 3 million gallons of acidic wastewater into the Animas River.

A team contracted by the EPA was doing remedial work at the mine portal and, underestimating the water pressure, accidentally caused the spill.

La Plata County requested the federal agency issue an initial response reimbursement of $200,000 to cover expenses, such as overtime compensation for staff. In order to receive that money, commissioners must adopt a co-opt agreement outlining expectations and goals with the EPA.

Goals reach far beyond the Aug. 5 disaster.

The agreement could include language addressing long-term monitoring measures and La Plata’s overall environmental health.

“It’s not necessarily about the Gold King Mine incident anymore,” Commissioner Gwen Lachelt said.

“This took everyone by surprise, even those who worked on this intimately and knew there was always a concern there could be a bigger spill,” she later told The Durango Herald.

“The biggest blessing is that we have an increased understanding of the drainage occurring every day.”

Lachelt said cleanup of Cement Creek, a contaminated Animas tributary unlivable for wildlife, should be among top priorities.

She and her colleagues considered looking to other organizations in Colorado for guidance, but Peter Butler, co-coordinator of the Animas River Stakeholders Group, pushed the commission to take advantage of the chance to steer the agreement in its favor.

“You may want to be creative and go in the direction you want with it,” Butler said.

“You push in the direction you want things to go and see what response you get.”

Once a final draft is complete, the commissioners will vote on it.

Next week, commissioners will hear the results of an independently conducted water sampling study and compare their data with the EPA’s in order to rest the minds of county residents who don’t trust the federal agency’s findings.

Commissioners seek reimbursement for this cost as well.

As they discussed remedial efforts, commissioners played with the idea of forming a coalition of organizations to collaboratively come up with environmental protection solutions, much like the Montana-based restoration group Clark Fork Coalition.

The 30-year-old organization has had to deal with abandoned mine pollution. Like the ARSG has done in Southwest Colorado, the group has invested years into restoring the health of the Clark Fork Watershed, whose problems began in 1908 when a flood washed contaminants into the Upper Clark Fork, which still affects the watershed to this day.

“Remove the source, and if that’s not possible, figure out at least how to stabilize it and make it less vulnerable,” CFC Executive Director Karen Knudsen said.

Federal Superfund dollars have been integral to restoration projects in the Clark Fork area, Knudsen said, though Silverton has resisted that funding in the past and continues to debate it.

“You have to have your eye on the big picture,” Knudsen said.

“A Superfund process takes time, but it’s more than worth it. If you think about the river in geological time, with a little help from innovative humans, you can give it the nudge it needs to return to a life-sustaining river system.”

Knudsen said a restoration initiative that began in 1998 along 26 miles of the Upper Clark Fork was completed this year. With this project, coordinators completely scraped the stream of heavy metals and laid new floodplain soil. Formerly uninhabitable for insects and fish, as Cement Creek is now, those forms of wildlife started to return to the stream in the mid-2000s.

jpace@durangoherald.com



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