EPA is responsible for a devastating toxic spill into the Animas River.

An EPA safety crew was supposed to be cleaning up an abandon Colorado mine when they accidentally sent 3 million gallons of chemically filled waste water into the Animas River. The toxic spill carried metals, mainly iron, zinc and copper which also contained arsenic, and could affect 3 states, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah.

The spill could kill animals, damage crops and destroy the soil. This is absolutely devastating to such a beautiful region.

Just how polluted is the river? Is drinking water in peril? Are businesses dependent on the river out of luck?

One question that has been answered is the size of the spill: more than triple than originally estimated. The U.S. Geological Survey reported the size of the spill to be more than 3 million gallons, compared with the initial EPA estimate of 1 million gallons.

In a statement from NMED, state engineer Tom Blaine said that the EPA took no action to alert residents of New Mexico to the potential danger, and did not notify the state directly.

SOURCE

a reply to: WeRpeons
EPA is responsible for a devastating toxic spill

the EPA is too busy worrying about Carbon dioxide/Global warming to be bothered by actual toxic contamination, thats Old school

Another reason to close the EPA
unintended consequences

Like the unintended consequences of massive job losses
due to overly zealous over regulation

What do government bureaucrats whose butts are
firmly planted at a desk in D.C. know about
the environment - obviously nothing

Shutter the entire agency
They have done massive harm to the economy
and now to the actual environment

We can keep water, air, etc clean without
their bureaucratic butts getting fatter in
DC every day.

The watchdogs make sure no one else can do this - take a dump on the lawn, but no one watches the watchdogs and apparently they can take a dump anywhere they want.

a reply to: WeRpeons

Read about this the other day.. another polluted river!

Hope this gets cleaned up quick and all the other rivers that are polluted as we speak.

The EPA should get the same level of fines and punishment that any private enterprise would receive. If BP or some other large corporation did the same thing, we wouldn't hear the end of it.

originally posted by: Edumakated
The EPA should get the same level of fines and punishment that any private enterprise would receive. If BP or some other large corporation did the same thing, we wouldn't hear the end of it.

Sadly, the EPA is operated by tax dollars.

So they could get fined, but ultimately, the money will come from our pockets.

a reply to: grandmakdw

We can keep water, air, etc clean without
their bureaucratic butts getting fatter in
DC every day.

But we don't. The mine that the spill came from, used to dump the mine waste into the Animas river.
The Animas River was dead before regulations. Now it's dead again. It was the EPA that caused this recent tragedy...it was the mine that created the toxic sludge in the first place. There are abondoned mines all over the SW where you can get mercury poisoned by just walking around the area.

You ok with fracking?

a reply to: TruthxIsxInxThexMist

If I recall, I think they said it may take up to 10 years to clear this spill. I would be very worried about the drinking water in those three states. Since the EPA didn't notify the state immediately, some people in that area could have been drinking toxic water without knowing it!

a reply to: Tellurian

An agency who is supposed to protect the environment ends up polluting it! If this was done by the public, they would be heavily fined. Instead, we're all fined because they'll use tax payer's dollars for the clean-up.

If it was the government it most likely was no accident. It always seems like when the government is involved in most things there is some kind of accident that they claim to be sorry for and then after an investigation it turns out that the amount of incompetence is almost unbelievable.

Oh, even better, I heard on the radio on my drive home today that they are putting cages of live trout into the river to test how safe it is. None of have died ... so it's all good. It's clear now. Fine. Really ...

If any private company tested the conditions like that, they'd be skewered.

a reply to: WeRpeons

The EPA just like the FDA are both corrupt on many levels. Oversight is needed but the agencies overseeing have huge competence and integrity issues. Many employees travel back and forth between the agencies and the companies they are supposed to oversee.




I can prove what I am saying......Fracking is really bad for the planet and people living near it and the EPA does nothing......NOTHING. Look at the gulf oil spill and the lack of a real response........Something is very wrong with these two agencies.

a reply to: SubTruth

I'll tell you part of the problem.

The government has decided that industry is the real and only evil. They stopped hiring people who have pertinent and direct experience in the actual industries they are tasked to oversee in favor of young activist types straight out of college who see only evil in everything they are tasked to oversee and know only the theory with no real idea how it applies practically in the real world.

Just as with socialism and communism, some things look awesome on paper and don't work so well in the real world, but you can't tell these types that. And, of course, because they work for the government, their own s*** doesn't stink, so they can do no wrong.

originally posted by: Edumakated
The EPA should get the same level of fines and punishment that any private enterprise would receive. If BP or some other large corporation did the same thing, we wouldn't hear the end of it.

...I agree, but hooray for eating our own tail on that one! EPA screws it up, we taxpayers get to foot the bill. The agency should be downsized and brought swiftly back to heel. From an authority standpoint, the Army Corps of Engineer's has pre-eminence here anyway thanks to this river system being part of the "Waters of the US." The Corps should issues the fines, the courts should issue the civil penalties, and the EPA should be ordered by Congress to pay for all of it out of their existing budget with $0 additional tax money added in there to cover it.

Here we go. Here come all the pro deregulation comments.

First off, this is a terrible thing that happened. No one should be condoning it and the EPA should be held responsible.

But how many EPA disasters are there for every disaster by industry neglect?

This is actually wonderful for big business because they can muddy the waters even more and say, "See, regulation doesn't work." And millions of people will be watching Fox News and believe every word of it. When the reality is, without regulations, there would be far more disasters. If anything this proves that we need more funding for the EPA, not the other way around.

And please, before we get all upset at the EPA about our tax money, how about we get upset over the 21 trillion from the world's elite that's being hidden in off shore accounts.

a reply to: Reflection

The EPA is presently a redundant agency which only serves as another layer of costly red tape, though. If you hate the wealthy elite, you should hate the EPA because they are very much a "pay to play" agency which bases its decisions often on political pressure applied on them following a wealthy corporation lobbying a few high ranking politicians. The EPA really shouldn't even be dealing with flowing waters because the Corps of Engineers has regulatory authority there and the Coast Guard is next in line if the waters are navigable.

As an aside, would any of the excuses and "buts" the EPA is throwing out in this Animas River disaster fly if it had been a private corporation causing this?

a reply to: Reflection

I didn't say anything about deregulating. I did say that you have the kiddies running the asylum. When you go to work, who does the supervising - the guy who usually has experience and understands how things work or the new kid who's wet behind the ears and knows nothing? There is a reason why supervisory jobs demand experience on the resume, and regulatory posts should be no different. If you don't understand the stuff you are working with and have oversight of, then how can you expect them to do any kind of decent job at anything related to it ... including cleanup?

a reply to: ketsuko

I agree with some of that. I mean we have Ted Cruz overseeing NASA for God's sake.

The problem is that yes you need people that understand the industry, but a lot of the time that just means business as usual which is often the problem. When new science discovers externalities that weren't previously understood, who is gonna be there to regulate that?

I know the very industry being regulated isn't gonna do it. Look at the banks and wall street's idea of self regulation. How'd that work out?

Can government agencies become corrupt?

Absolutely.

But if someone has a better idea as to how industry can be safely regulated, I'm all ears.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

I'm for science and the application of it regarding the health of the planet. If the EPA is making regulations and decisions based on lobbiest and special interests then that's not genuine science, nor a genuine EPA.

But what would you propose? That industry regulate themselves? Government bad, big business everyone's savior?