Local author Jonathan Thompson is starting to realize that his new book about the Gold King Mine spill, which simultaneously delves into the region’s dirty extractive history, may have the side effect of driving down property values in Durango.
“But maybe that’s not such a bad thing,” Thompson joked this week during a stop on his book tour at the Green Business Roundtable, a monthly lecture series that brings speakers on environmental issues to the Henry Strater Theatre.
Recently, Thompson, a sixth-generation Durangoan and contributor to High County News, released his first book: River of Lost Souls: The Science, Politics and Greed Behind the Gold King Mine Disaster.
The spill – in which the Environmental Protection Agency triggered a mine blowout north of Silverton, releasing a torrent of bright orange mine waste into the Animas River – served as the catalyst for the book.
“Part of my intent with the book is to point out, here’s this huge event people got so alarmed about, but the fact is this did not happen in isolation,” Thompson said. “Then, to say, the Animas River watershed is not alone in all this.”
Thompson ran through Silverton’s conflicted relationship with mining, which brought hordes of people and cutting-edge technology to the remote mountain town, but also left behind a legacy of pollution that lingers to this day.
Entering the “doom and gloom” portion of his talk, Thompson said miners would regularly dump mine waste into lakes and rivers, which resulted in poor water quality for downstream users.
“Farmers down here (in Durango) were plagued by these tailings,” said Thompson. Ditches and water intakes would clog, and water would damage crops.
“The farmers, they could see what was going on,” he said. “And they started fighting back very early on.”
Thompson’s book is about more than just the August 2015 spill.
At its core, the book details the region’s long history with the extractive industry, and points out trends between company owners then and now.
When farmers and other downstream users complained about the pollution coming down from the mines in Silverton, the mining companies would threaten that any change in practices would drive them out of business.
You wouldn’t want to kill the goose that laid the golden egg, they’d say.
Thompson said the argument is eerily similar to oil and gas companies today that claim any further regulation would run them out of business and eliminate jobs, especially in regard to a proposed rule to cutback on methane emissions.
“You see that pattern repeat itself,” he said.
Aside from the onslaught of “doom and gloom,” Thompson wondered how different things could be if extractive companies dedicated the same effort and innovative spirit to being environmentally responsible as they did to making a profit.
“Why can’t they use a little bit of that energy ... to maybe figure out how to do it a little bit cleaner,” he said.
Thompson said if history serves as an indicator, those efforts are inspired by regulations. Already, money is being directed to and jobs are being created for efforts to reduce wasted methane emissions.
“There’s an incentive (with regulations),” he said. “And there’s jobs being created and polluting being stopped and methane not being wasted, which is a commodity.”
As far as making it more affordable to live in Durango by scaring away potential future residents, Thompson said he personally feels safe in town.
“I think some people are still afraid of the river, but I grew up here,” he said. “So I don’t worry about it.”
jromeo@durangoherald.com
