I heard Todd Hennis interviewed on the Denver IHeartRadio station KOA Thursday afternoon and I was very interested to hear his account of what happened and why. Even with this being a rightwing station (Limbaugh, Michael Brown (heckuva job Brownie) and the like, he wasn't being an anti-government critic. He was very respectful of the EPA, didn't blame them the way the politicians did and he indicated that he really appreciated the EPA quickly taking responsibility (the announcers gave him a chance to criticize them or blame them and he refused to take the bait).
Follow me over the Animas River symbol for some details from an article from CNN and Fox.
CNN Wire Service published the article, but I found it for some reason on a Milwaukee Fox television station and couldn't find this particular article around Colorado. I found it because the radio station hasn't published the interview on the website and I wanted to share some of the same thoughts with you. Here's the link to the CNN article on the Fox web site. I encourage you to read this because it has a few pieces that I hadn't heard elsewhere.
He blames the mine next to his, called the Sunnyside mine, for changes to the underground drainage patterns, basically filling his mine with their waste water. The EPA started to explore how they could stop the leaking water from his mine, the Gold King Mine, but they ran out of time last year and they plugged up the opening with dirt. When they came back this year, they started to see what was going on, nudged the dirt and apparently that was all it took to essentially burst with all the pressure behind it.
A few examples:
Before the American tunnel was plugged, the Gold King Mine discharged 7 gallons of water a minute, and didn’t pose a health risk, Hennis said. After the project at the Sunnyside Mine, the discharge from the Gold King Mine discharge had grown to 250 gallons of water a minute, he said.
“Sunnyside mine workings have no physical connection to the Gold King and such a connection never existed,” said Kevin Roach, director of reclamation operations at Sunnyside. “Sunnyside is not the cause of the water buildup at Gold King.”
The (Gold King) mine also has large deposits of tellurium, which is used in high-tech alloys, he said.
Which is why Hennis purchased the mine (which he now wants to sell). One of the uses is for solar panel films, according to Hennis.
Hennis predicted that this will continue in greater quantity as Sunnyside continues to have greater drainage and will affect his mine but others in the area. Apparently the drainage now is still over 600 gallons per minute according to the USGS. Mines are draining water with toxic additives into streams all over the country - did you read the diary by ericf?
Did you hear about the town on Colorado's eastern plains, Burlington, that failed to notify the residents for about eighteen months that the nitrate levels in the public water supply were elevated above safe levels? The state is fining them a million dollars for failing to follow state regulations and notify the locals and the state of violations of water quality.
Health officials say nitrate in drinking water is a serious health concern for infants younger than six months, and a potential risk for women who are pregnant or breastfeeding and other people who are taking medications that would make them sensitive. - See more at: http://www.cpr.org/...
Of course, Burlington said they can't pay that million dollar fine (and it's a big fine for a relatively small town - about 4000 people). But also, of course, the high plains of Colorado are bright red for politics. Proper regulation of things like water quality, agricultural waste, or proper taxes to ensure for the health and welfare of the people out there are for damned libruls from the cities, not for the proud people of the plains. They would much rather cut taxes and hide evidence that they're harming people while drinking bottled water instead.
Western Colorado, Eastern Colorado, nearly every other place in the country - water is a finite resource that we're polluting through neglect, through conscious choice and through political policy. Sad, really.
Anyway, I figured that folks would be interested in more info about the backstory on the mine issue - again, go read the article at the link.