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NY Times, August 17 2016
Navajo Nation Sues E.P.A. in Poisoning of a Colorado River
By JULIE TURKEWITZ
DENVER — The Navajo Nation filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the
Environmental Protection Agency and several corporations, saying that
poisoned water that flowed from a punctured Colorado mine last year
disrupted hundreds of lives near a critical watershed.
The disaster, the federal suit says, has heightened economic and
spiritual pain in a region hamstrung by poverty and drought. The tribe
is seeking to hold the agency and corporations accountable, be made
whole for at least $2 million spent on testing and alternative water
sources and be compensated for lost revenue and psychological damages.
“We cannot just sit back and let the E.P.A. do what they’ve been doing,
just doling us pennies,” said the president of the Navajo Nation,
Russell Begaye, in a telephone interview. “This river is the main river
that gives life to the whole region, not just those who live around the
river, but the entire nation. This is our lifeblood. It is sacred to us.”
A spokeswoman for the E.P.A., Nancy Grantham, said the agency could not
comment on active legal issues. Representatives from the mining
companies and the E.P.A. contractors declined to comment or did not
return messages.
The lawsuit stems from an August 2015 episode in which contractors hired
by the E.P.A. to assess a shuttered gold mine — the Gold King in
southwest Colorado — accidentally broke the mine’s seal, causing about
three million gallons of chemical-laced orange sludge to flow into the
Animas River south of the mine and then into the San Juan.
The E.P.A. took responsibility for the accident and has spent $29
million to address cleanup and compensate communities, including the
Navajo Nation. But people along the spill’s path have continued to feel
its effects. The sludge coursed through Colorado, New Mexico and Utah.
The E.P.A. is considering whether to declare the area around the Gold
King a Superfund site.
The Navajo reservation, a vast region of red rocks that sits south of
the mine, was hit particularly hard by the spill because leaders told
people not to use water from the San Juan River for weeks after the
E.P.A. said it was safe. Mr. Begaye, the Navajo president, said he was
wary of the claim that the stream was healthy enough for agricultural
and other use.
Irrigation lines were cut off. Corn, melons, hay and wheat never made it
to market. The spill, the president said, delivered a psychological
lashing in a drought-stricken place where water is gold, many live in
poverty and the San Juan River holds financial and spiritual power.
The lawsuit names several defendants: the E.P.A.; two contractors called
Environmental Restoration and Harrison Western; four mining companies
called Gold King Mines Corporation, Sunnyside Gold Corporation, Kinross
in Canada and Kinross USA; and 10 unnamed individuals.
It alleges that mismanagement of the mine, which had been closed for
years but never cleaned up, caused it to swell with toxic water and
eventually burst. The suit says that 880,000 pounds of metals spilled
out when the Gold King burst, and that “roughly 80 to 90 percent”
remains embedded in the river upstream, ready to flush into the Navajo
Nation during rains and storms.
Near the Gold King in Colorado, toxic water continues to flow out of the
mine at a rate of 570 gallons a minute. A nearby water treatment plant
put in place by the E.P.A. removes 95 percent of contaminants.
The agency says that the water below the mine and the treatment facility
has generally returned to prespill conditions, and local governments
have instructed residents to resume recreational and agricultural
activities on the Animas and San Juan Rivers.
The suit is the latest to come out of the mine blowout. Earlier this
year, New Mexico sued the E.P.A. and the State of Colorado over the
accident. And the E.P.A.’s Office of the Inspector General has opened a
criminal investigation into the spill.
Follow Julie Turkewitz @julieturkewitz on Twitter.
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