WASHINGTON – It’s been nearly 10 years since the Environmental Protection Agency breached a holding plug at the Gold King Mine north of Silverton and sent 3 million gallons of acidic, heavy-metal laden water flowing down Cement Creek and into the Animas and San Juan rivers.
The mustard-yellow water cleared within weeks of the spill, but some local businesses and residents are still waiting on compensation for lost business revenue and costs related to impacted livestock and agriculture all these years later.
Colorado Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, alongside Rep. Jeff Hurd, reintroduced a bill Thursday that would give the EPA funding to provide compensation of about $3.3 million to those residents and businesses. The city of Durango and the La Plata County Board of County Commissioners have both provided letters in support of the bill.
The Gold King Mine Compensation Act of 2025 is identical to the September 2024 version, with the added stipulation that the cost to settle the claims will not exceed $3.3 million. The bill is the second piece of legislation Hurd has sponsored since joining Congress on Jan. 3.
Since the spill, residents have heard back-and-forth responses about whether they would ever receive compensation for lost business income, lost crops, relocating livestock or finding alternative water sources. Even rafting companies are seeking compensation for having to suspend operations during peak tourism season.
Alex Mickel, president of Durango-based Mild to Wild Rafting and Jeep Tours, said the lawmakers’ work on the bill was “restoring my faith in government.”
“After all these years to see the promise of our government concerning the Gold King Mine incident and its ensuing economic damage was not forgotten, is refreshing,” said Mickel, in news release Thursday from Bennet’s office. “The wheels of government turn slowly.”
In the final days of the Obama administration in January 2017, the EPA denied all claims from residents, though it footed the bill for half of the cost of the cleanup. In June of that year, Trump administration EPA Director Scott Pruitt visited the spill site and told residents the EPA would reconsider their claims. But he resigned a year later, and it wasn’t until August 2023 that residents and businesses were once again told their claims had been fully or partially denied. Those who did receive compensation received only $2,500.
Under the legislation, all of the 98 claimants who received $2,500 or nothing at all in 2023 would be eligible for up to the original value of their claims.
It will likely take many months before claimants see any of the money, if they do at all. The 2024 version of the bill made it through only the early stages of consideration before it died at the end of the session in December. The 2025 bill must pass both chambers and be signed by the president, a process that typically takes several months, if not longer.
Still, Bennet said he thinks it is worth pursuing. He said last year’s passage of the Good Samaritan Remediation of Hardrock Mines Act of 2024 – a law that allows organizations to clean up hardrock mines without assuming full financial responsibility for pollution – could be a helpful sign that people are “getting more fluent with these issues.”
“I think that we’ve just got to keep pushing, so that the people that were harmed in that can be compensated properly,” he told The Durango Herald. “And I’m sorry that it hasn’t gotten – that we’re having to introduce it again, but it hasn’t passed, so we’re just going to keep at it and hope we can build bipartisan support for it.”
Durango Mayor Jessika Buell thanked the senators and Hurd for their efforts to “finally recover costs and to make our community whole again.”
“Durango residents were stunned when our beloved Animas River turned orange after the Gold King Mine spill. It has been a long road toward recovery,” she said in the release. “This bill will help local business owners who suffered because of the spill, and show residents the key role the federal government plays in protecting a resource that is the lifeblood of this community.”
Kathryn Squyres is an intern for The Durango Herald and The Journal in Cortez and a student at American University in Washington, D.C. She can be reached at ksquyres@durangoherald.com.
A previous version of this story erred in saying the Gold King Mine Compensation Act must be approved by a committee before moving on to the House and the Senate.
