Resilient. It is a word that comes to mind to describe the natural and human communities in the Animas River watershed. It was the message delivered Wednesday night at the Animas River Celebration outside at the Powerhouse Science Center, next to the river.
Bob Kunkel, executive director of the Durango Area Tourism Office, told the crowd that tourism stayed strong through last August following the spill. Ed Zink, an Animas Valley landowner, indicated that except for visible sediment, the river is back to normal. That fact was echoed by Buck Skillen, with Trout Unlimited, who said the bug and fish tests show no impact. Andy Corra, owner of Four Corner River Sports, said river-dependent businesses were affected in the short-term, but his business has not been harmed long-term. He said that this summer has been a strong one for local rafting companies, though they still await reimbursement for lost revenue. We hope that situation is soon resolved.
Hosted by the Animas River Community Forum and kicking off the Mountain Studies Institute’s San Juan Mining and Reclamation Conference, Wednesday’s event spoke to just how little we knew about the river before the spill; that is in great contrast to what we know now.
Many of us did not know how closely we are tied to the Animas until we got word of the release and waited for the plume to arrive in Durango. It was an ominous, emotional experience.
Many people also did not know that although 3 million gallons of heavy metal-laden mine water were released on August 5, 2015, approximately 3 million gallons of mine water drained out of the Gold King each week before the spill. A review of this paper’s archives reveals a long story of mine waste discharges dating to 1899. That is the quiet but real calamity that had largely gone unnoticed by the public.
Thanks to public concern and cooperative efforts between government entities, not-for-profit organizations, scientists and watershed groups we now know more about water quality, sediment, aquatic life and how people value and use the river than at any prior time. The Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment and San Juan Basin Health on Monday released Animas River data that can be found on the web at www.sjbhd.org. The data shows that exposure to water or sediment during typical recreation on the river poses no health risk.
With a forthcoming Superfund designation, we are on our way to a clean-up, and serving as an example for other mining communities. We are also lucky the Environmental Protection Agency was there. The agency did not cause this spill on purpose; it was at the mine helping to address these long-standing issues. The Office of Inspector General investigation that began last August is standard operating procedure. Without the EPA and government agencies at all levels, there is simply no option for addressing the risks posed by the region’s mining legacy.
We have learned there is plenty to work on for decades to come. We must support efforts to pass good samaritan legislation and to reform the 1872 Mining Law to fund cleaning up the 500,000 abandoned and inactive mines across the U.S. so that the estimated $50 billion in clean-up costs does not fall to taxpayers. And we must do it together.
