It took only a matter of days for the Animas River to return to its typical emerald color palette after contaminated water poured out of the Gold King Mine on Aug. 5, 2015, and turned it a mustard yellow. The spill, which occurred after contractors working for the Environmental Protection Agency accidentally breached a plug in the mine, has since become symbolic of the ecological concerns that enshroud Silverton and the hundreds of abandoned mines that surround the town.
As the plume flowed through Durango, images of the river flooded social media and news outlets nationwide – images that have yet to evaporate from the public consciousness.
“It was on Jeopardy!,” said Peter Butler, chairman of the Community Advisory Group that gives the EPA community-based input on the Bonita Peak Superfund Site. “Everyone knew the answer.”
The category was “Don’t drink the water” and the question was, “In 2015 a rock dam was removed from this type of site in Colorado, turning the Animas River yellow & metallic.” The answer: “A (gold) mine.”
Although it was known within a matter of days, one fact about the spill still has not gained the level of recognition that some of the fiercest advocates for abandoned mine remediation think it should.
“There was little in the way of an environmental impact from the Gold King spill,” said Ty Churchwell, the mining coordinator with Trout Unlimited. “It looked a lot worse than it was. There was no fish kill.”
The image of the river has become a bit of a red – or yellow – herring, say those who were most impacted by the spill. And while it catalyzed the decision to create the Bonita Peak Superfund site containing 48 abandoned mines, advocates and those who rely on the watershed for a living are split on the relative benefits reaped from that decision.
Although the captivating images of Gold King do not reflect the minimal environmental impact of the spill, the persistence of those images is a statement on the social impact of the event.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, the University of Arizona Superfund Research Center, Utah’s Department of Environmental Quality and San Juan Basin Public Health are among the agencies that have conducted extensive water and soil quality testing on the Animas and San Juan rivers in the wake of the spill.
Although the levels of heavy metals found in certain spots along the river or in fish rose above recommended levels, no study ever concluded that eating fish from the river or irrigating crops with river water could pose a health risk.
After the testing of fish flesh caught in the Animas River both immediately after the spill and in the spring of 2016, CDPHE concluded “the levels of all tested metals in Animas River rainbow and brown trout fall within the range of levels in available Colorado fish data, and thus, most likely represent background levels and do not indicate a change due to the mine.”
Whether to make the point that remediation work is direly needed or that Gold King was not so bad, many point to a statement made by the EPA that the equivalent of one Gold King spill flows down the Animas each week.
However, Butler said the oft-touted statement may be misleading.
Yes, the equivalent volume of water released in Gold King, about 3 million gallons, flows out of draining mines each week. But it takes approximately 320 days for the same amount of heavy metals released during the spill to make its way out of the mines under normal circumstances.
Arguably the largest impact of the spill was regulatory, Churchwell said. He serves as the treasurer of the CAG.
Fearing a devastating impact on tourism, the town of Silverton and San Juan County had long resisted designating any part of the area as a Superfund site.
“Who wants to go vacation in a town called a Superfund site?” Churchwell said. “When the Gold King spill happened ... there wasn’t any hiding it anymore. It was all over the world and the problem of Animas’ water quality near Silverton was out and probably the best thing that Silverton could do to save their image was to acknowledge that the problem does exist and that we want to resolve it.”
But before the designation, a small but dedicated group had been hard at work. Butler co-founded The Animas River Stakeholders Group, which disbanded in 2019 after 25 years, to take on the issue of water quality in the area.
“Most of the mine waste work that needed to be done – the worst sites – we had done,” Butler said. “There were approximately 60 mining remediation projects that were completed before the Gold King Mine spill.”
But the ARSG was limited by federal law in its ability to mitigate the environmental impacts of abandoned mines. Waste rock from mines can release heavy metals into the watershed as water percolates through it, and the ARSG focused most of its efforts on this issue.
The other problem posed by abandoned mines is drainage – water pouring through shafts and tunnels. Without a liable party, any individual or group that begins to address a draining mine becomes liable for the entire cleanup.
In the absence of a responsible party, a Superfund designation is the only way to address draining mines.
“The reality was that the ARSG was doing a good job of remediation and we had been talking to the EPA about a limited Superfund designation to address remediation issues that could not be addressed by ARSG,” San Juan County Administrator William Tookey wrote in an email to The Durango Herald. “We were well aware that a Superfund designation was not a silver bullet.”
After the spill, a Superfund designation became all but inevitable. The designation allowed the EPA to recoup funds from responsible parties and begin to address draining mines. However, the designation has come with its share of complications.
“The EPA was required to repeat a lot of the testing and sampling that had previously been done with ARSG,” Tookey said. “The rules and bureaucracy does not allow EPA to move quickly.”
The EPA installed a water treatment facility in October 2015 to treat water draining out of Gold King. But Gold King is just one of four major mines draining into the watershed.
“They’ve spent over $110 million on this site,” Butler said. “... But the only thing that they’ve done that substantially improves water quality is to treat the Gold King (drainage) at the mine site. So they’ve spent a lot of money and have little on the ground to show for it.”
Christina Progress, the Remedial Project Manager with the EPA for the site, said she understands the frustration. The agency is working with the CAG to explore ways to expedite the cleanup, but Progress said there are also certain limitations inherent to the Superfund process.
Although it is slow, Churchwell said the Superfund process has worked well in other places to address similar issues and is likely to work in Silverton – albeit slowly.
He also pointed to another potential beacon of hope: a “good Samaritan Law” that would allow qualified groups to undertake mine drainage remediation without saddling the liability. The law, which has been the topic of debate since the 1990s, was introduced with bipartisan support again in the most recent Congress, but failed to make it out of committee.
Beyond the move to respond to the spill and prevent future spills, the impact of the image of a yellow river on the collective psyche of farmers, consumers, tourists, fishermen and whitewater enthusiasts has endured.
“The economic impact to our business started literally the next day,” said Tom Knopick, co-owner of Duranglers Flies and Supplies.
“We still have people coming in today asking, ‘Is it OK? How’s that toxic spill?’”
“It’s in people’s minds still today,” added his business partner, John Flick.
Under the order of La Plata County Sheriff Sean Smith, the river was closed to recreation after the spill. The closure lasted nine days, at which point testing indicated it was safe to reopen.
“We saw more damage after (the 416 Fire) and mudslide entering the river than we did with Gold King, but the social impact that that had – the long-lasting ‘orange river in Durango, Colorado’ – has done more social damage than the actual impact of the mine spill at this point, which both of which continue to negatively impact our business,” said David Moler, the owner of Durango Rivertrippers and Adventure Tours.
Many businesses sought financial relief from the EPA. The agency was thought to be at fault for the spill and ultimately paid half of the $90 million settlement, sharing liability with the Sunnyside Gold Corp., which owns the mine.
But no businesses have received any compensation.
“What was so disappointing was the administrator of the EPA went in front of a congressional hearing and said, ‘We take full responsibility,’” said David Costlow, executive director of the Colorado River Outfitters Association. “... What’s full responsibility seven years later and there hasn’t been a determination? It’s not a very good look on ... the Obama administration, the Trump administration and now the Biden administration.”
Progess said she was unsure if any progress had been made toward compensation and that the agency does not typically comment about pending litigation.
Farther downstream, farmers on the Navajo Nation stopped irrigating their crops with the water from the San Juan River.
Karletta Chief is a professor of environmental science at the University of Arizona, an extension specialist and the community engagement core lead at the university’s Superfund Research Center. She said the stigma that accompanied crops that had been irrigated with San Juan River water downstream of its confluence with the Animas was too much to overcome.
“I think that stigma is something that is, in my opinion, still present today,” she said. “I don’t think people have completely forgotten about the spill.”
In research conducted three years after the spill, Chief found that a majority of farmers had not returned to trade.
Unlike businesses in Durango, New Mexico and the Navajo Nation have received tens of millions of dollars in financial compensation.
But Chief said based on her work in the community, it is difficult to put a dollar value on the stress and anger the spill caused and the anxiety it still induces.
“I don’t think that can be done, and I believe that the farmers have not been compensated for all the impacts that happened as a result of the spill that are still present today,” she said.
Progress said the EPA has implemented a “fluid hazards analysis” after the spill to prevent any such event from reoccurring at other sites.
With the $90 million settlement that occurred in January, the EPA is inching toward the process of conducting a feasibility study to determine exactly what work will take place.
And although draining mines will be addressed using the best engineering available, businesses and users of the watershed face a battle, like yellow water trying to run uphill, as they try to overcome the social impact of the spill.
rschafir@durangoherald.com
