/realnews/ - REAL NEWS

Southwestern Cities Forced onto “90-Day Supply of Water” After Toxic EPA Spill Contaminates Entire River

The very agency charged with protecting the environment has caused a toxic waste spill from an environmental disposal mine filled with a megaload of heavy metals including high levels of arsenic, lead and cadmium.

Residents in two New Mexico towns have been forced onto emergency water rations after the federal government caused the disastrous spill of environmentally-sequestered carcinogenic heavy metals.

Thanks to the EPA, these towns have been cut off from their source of water overnight — due to incompetence by the federal government no less. Their populations have been warned that they must rely upon a 90-day estimated supply of water until the EPA can thoroughly test the water, and clear it for safe usage.

The incident took place in southwest Colorado, spilling into the Animas River near the town of Silverton. The contaminated waters have overwhelmed at least two towns downstream in New Mexico, while the EPA admits the severe levels of toxins are also headed for parts of Utah, after the Animas joins a larger river.

http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/southwestern-cities-forced-onto-90-day-supply-of-water-after-toxic-epa-spill-contaminates-entire-river_08102015

EPA Disaster - Colorado Mine Spill Contaminated With Arsenic and Lead

NO ONE TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THIS DISASTER! GO FIGURE!

EPA officials insist the spill at the abandoned Gold King mine near Silverton, Colorado, shows little evidence of contamination in downstream sections of the San Juan River and Lake Powell.

But that has done little to ease concerns or quell the anger caused by the spill.

The Navajo Nation, which covers parts of New Mexico, Utah and Arizona, were frustrated during a special meeting Monday and echoed the sentiment of New Mexico and Utah officials that the federal government needs to be held accountable.

Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes discussed the legal implications with his New Mexico counterpart, Hector Balderas, and planned to hold a similar call with Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman, Reyes' office said Monday.

'We hope to work with our sister states to ensure our citizens are protected and whatever remediation is necessary occurs as quickly as possible,' Reyes said in a statement. 'We will continue to evaluate the legal issues as we receive data and monitor the effects on our communities.'

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Utah Gov. Gary Herbert said the governor is disappointed in the EPA's initial handling of the spill but the state has no plans for legal action.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3193842/Officials-towns-downstream-toxic-Colorado-spill-contaminated-arsenic-lead-demand-answers-possible-long-term-threats.html

>>82

A July 30 letter to the editor of a local newspaper from a retired geologist appears to have predicted the Environmental Protection Agency's disastrous chemical spill into a major Colorado River tributary that happened just days later.

As noted in earlier reports, tons of toxic water tainted with lead, arsenic and heavy metals poured into the Animas River when a contractor working for the EPA inadvertently breached a dam at the Gold King Mine.

Following the breach, the contaminated water spread downstream into New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, and is approaching Southern California. Initially, the EPA said only about 1 million gallons of contaminated water – which turned the river yellow-orange – flowed into the river, but later the agency was forced to admit that the amount was closer to 3 million gallons.

In any event, days before the incident, retired geologist Dave Taylor wrote to the editors of the Silverton Standard & the Miner newspaper that he believed there would be an intentional breach with ulterior motives behind it.

Read more here:

http://www.naturalnews.com/050772_EPA_pollution_Animas_River_federal_funding.html

>>39

The only thing more outrageous than the EPA's release of three million gallons of toxic waste into Colorado's Animas River has been its cavalier response to the disaster in the days since.

On Sunday night, EPA regional director Shaun McGrath told a town hall meeting in Colorado that the EPA would "hold ourselves to the same standards that we would anyone that would have created this situation." Right.

This is an agency that will aggressively fine businesses, municipalities and anyone or anything else for even the slightest violation of its ridiculously strict standards, but that will face zero fines for its own environmental catastrophe.

It's an agency that claims that even the tiniest levels of pollutants are extremely hazardous, yet has been busy downplaying the damage after its own incompetence caused the release of millions of gallons of toxic waste.

A few hours after the spill, an official EPA statement described it as nothing more than a "pulse" that had "dissipated in about an hour."

Previous pollution had already killed off most fish in the Animas, it said, so there was no real risk to wildlife.

The agency didn't even bother to notify New Mexico officials until almost 24 hours after the breach about the menace heading their way.

In the days following, EPA officials kept telling the public that no health hazard had been detected and that there was no threat to drinking water.

As late as Monday, McGrath was still saying he couldn't give an assessment of potential harm to people.

He couldn't? The EPA allows only minuscule amounts of these same metals in the air and water because it thinks they are so harmful.

The "safe" level for arsenic in drinking water is a tiny 10 parts per billion. Its hugely expensive mercury and air toxic rule was designed to get coal and oil plants to cut already tiny emissions of mercury, cadmium and other such pollutants.

Yet tests have shown lead spiking at thousands of times higher than government-approved levels, arsenic at 800 times and extremely high levels of beryllium, cadmium and mercury because of the EPA spill.

And the spill has affected seven water systems in New Mexico and Colorado — where the EPA is now delivering bottled water.

When it comes to pollution, the EPA appears to have one set of rules for itself and another for everyone else.

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/081115-766112-epa-plays-down-environmental-impact-of-its-own-massive-spill.htm

EPA Caused Toxic Spill In Georgia Shortly Before Colorado Incident

We all heard about the EPA’s disastrous early August spill where the agency sent some 3 million gallons of highly toxic mine waste water down the Animas River in Colorado.

But little does the public know, the EPA caused a serious spill in Georgia only months before contaminating the Animas.

In Greensboro, EPA-funded contractors grading a toxic 19th-century cotton mill site struck a water main, sending the deadly sediment into a nearby creek. Though that accident took place five months ago, the hazard continues as heavy storms — one hit the area Tuesday — wash more soil into the creek.

The sediment flows carry dangerous mercury, lead, arsenic and chromium downstream to the Oconee River — home to many federally and state protected species — and toward the tourist destination of Lake Oconee.

According to Microbiologist Dave Lewis, lead contamination in the soil where the Georgia spill took place is 20,000 times higher than federal levels established for drinking water.

The cotton mill site contains 34 hazardous chemicals, 30 of which are on the EPA’s list of priority pollutants because of “high toxicity, persistence, lack of degradability, and harmful effects on living organisms,” Lewis wrote in a 2014 affidavit, reports Watchdog.org.

http://www.activistpost.com/2015/08/epa-caused-toxic-spill-in-georgia-shortly-before-colorado-incident.html

>>82

EPA Knew of ‘Blowout’ Risk For Tainted Water at Gold Mine

Internal documents released late Friday show managers at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency were aware of the potential for a catastrophic “blowout” at an abandoned mine that could release “large volumes” of wastewater laced with toxic heavy metals.

EPA released the documents following weeks of prodding from The Associated Press and other media organizations. EPA and contract workers accidentally unleashed 3 million gallons of contaminated wastewater on Aug. 5 as they inspected the idled Gold King Mine near Silverton, Colorado.

Among the documents is a June 2014 work order for a planned cleanup that noted that the old mine had not been accessible since 1995, when the entrance partially collapsed. The plan appears to have been produced by Environmental Restoration, a private contractor working for EPA.

“This condition has likely caused impounding of water behind the collapse,” the report says. “ln addition, other collapses within the workings may have occurred creating additional water impounding conditions. Conditions may exist that could result in a blowout of the blockages and cause a release of large volumes of contaminated mine waters and sediment from inside the mine, which contain concentrated heavy metals.”

A subsequent May 2015 action plan for the mine also notes the potential for a blowout.

There are at least three ongoing investigations into exactly how EPA triggered the disaster, which tainted rivers in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah with lead, arsenic and other contaminates. EPA says its water testing has shown contamination levels have since fallen back to pre-spill levels, though experts warn the heavy metals have likely sunk and mixed with bottom sediments that could someday be stirred back up.

The documents, which the agency released about 10:30 p.m. eastern time, do not include any account of what happened immediately before or after the spill. The wastewater flowed into a tributary of the Animas and San Juan rivers, turning them a sickly yellow.

Elected officials in affected states and elsewhere have been highly critical of the EPA’s initial response. Among the unanswered questions is why it took the agency nearly a day to inform local officials in downstream communities that rely on the rivers for drinking water.

Much of the text in the documents released Friday was redacted by EPA officials. Among the items blacked out is the line in a 2013 safety plan for the Gold King job that specifies whether workers were required to have phones that could work at the remote site, which is more than 11,000 feet up a mountain.

EPA did not immediately respond Friday night to questions from the AP. In the wake of the spill, it has typically taken days to get any detailed response from the agency, if at all.

On its website, contractor Environmental Restoration posted a brief statement last week confirming its employees were present at the mine when the spill occurred. The company declined to provide more detail, saying that to do so would violate “contractual confidentiality obligations.”

The EPA has not yet provided a copy of its contact with the firm. On the March 2015 cost estimate for the work released Friday, the agency blacked out all the dollar figures.

http://www.infowars.com/epa-knew-of-blowout-risk-for-tainted-water-at-gold-mine/