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Are the responsible individuals being prosecuted? Have they, individually, paid fines for the violation? Have the greenie nutjobs called for their deaths yet, like they do when a company makes a mistake? Where is the NYT and Puffpoo?
So, only greenie nutjobs are the ones who are interested in companies being fined for pollution issues, or being held responsible?
Just checking. In your world. . .someone does a big spill. the only ones who gripe are greenie nutjobs?
what kind of crazy "green" colored glasses are you wearing?
That has already been covered. If a state undertakes this and there is an accident the EPA fines them. If they do nothing there are no fines.
Do you have an example, I recall the Duke Dan River "accident" along with the Elk River in WV 2014-2015 the state regulation by North Carolina and WV was non-existent.
I think this whole event is a diversion from the real problem - that both before this screw up (and I agree that it was a screw up by the EPA) this crap was flowing into the Animas River, and will continue to flow into the Animas River long after the pundits have forgotten about it all. I would hope that someone at the EPA will be held accountable, but I also hope that the attention this has received will also lead to something being done about the actual problem, which is 1000's of gallons of this stuff flowing into our rivers every single day. Unfortunately this screw up pretty much guarantees the cost of this will fall entirely on the taxpayer and not the folks that actually caused the problem and walked away with the profits.
There is NO "diversion from the real problem" .... the "real problem" of toxic water has been around for years. They spent $6.5 Million in 2006 to try a "fix" it. They had been testing, attempting to come up with solutions for years. They have at least 3 dedicated groups of people in the area that work on just the Animas River issues and the upper creek areas like Cement Creek. The Red Tape is so onerous & the EPA so difficult to work with that it's next to impossible to do anything while they study-study-study and then blow it up with a Band-Aid solution done by EPA people and EPA contractors.
I'm not a Geologist or a Hydrologist - but I do understand how Pressurization works and quite a bit about basic Physics. I also understand the figures that the EPA is releasing. I also know how to track down what Geologists are saying AND said before this "plug" was installed. They said this would FAIL and so it did.
While excavating loose material in the mine, pressurized water burst out of a tunnel and into a creek that fed into the Animas River.
The toxic levels prior to last week when Gold King #7 blew -
The EPA said arsenic levels in the Durango, Colo., area of the river showed 300 times the normal level of arsenic and 3,500 times the normal level of lead.
300 times the normal level and 3500 times the normal level ..... means this blowout made thing significantly WORSE - at that's just 2 elements that they have released. There are others they have not released.
A big part of the EPA argument (and the Enviro Wackos) is the harm to Fish in the Animas - Interesting that despite all the concern about Fish BEFORE the Blow-out, everything looks fine for the Fish now - even with Toxicity increased by 300 & 3,500 times the normal level. Who is buying that?
I like Fish, I like Fishing, I like (even demand) clean water that is non-toxic for Fishing and Recreation -- BUT the main concern is that the Animas provides more than Recreation. It flows into the San Juan River and the Colorado River. It goes through 4 States and provides irrigation for crops, water for stock animals like cattle, provides water to Indian Reservations, feeds into wells for water tanks and homes and (in some cases) drinking water for towns.
This has a serious impact on PEOPLE. Instead of all this goofy Climate Justice - how about spending some real time on real solutions for Clean Water instead of Band-Aid solutions that are proven failures (see water buildup after the 2006 plug).
Do you have an example, I recall the Duke Dan River "accident" along with the Elk River in WV 2014-2015 the state regulation by North Carolina and WV was non-existent.
No it wasn't. No one enforced the regulations.
Storage tanks of course must be inspected, but no one did and no one said a word when they were not inspected.
I'm not sure what North Carolina has to do with that situation.
Location: When you take flak it means you are on target
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kibby
I like Fish, I like Fishing, I like (even demand) clean water that is non-toxic for Fishing and Recreation -- BUT the main concern is that the Animas provides more than Recreation. It flows into the San Juan River and the Colorado River. It goes through 4 States and provides irrigation for crops, water for stock animals like cattle, provides water to Indian Reservations, feeds into wells for water tanks and homes and (in some cases) drinking water for towns.
This has a serious impact on PEOPLE. Instead of all this goofy Climate Justice - how about spending some real time on real solutions for Clean Water instead of Band-Aid solutions that are proven failures (see water buildup after the 2006 plug).
Are you forgetting about 30 MILLION people who drink the Colorado River dry? The millions who's income depends on this water.
The EPA is a criminaly incompetent agency. The whole management structure should go to prison!
I believe it was the Colorado mine that created the toxic chemicals, not the EPA.
This wouldn't be a story if the mine had taken responsibility for safely disposing of the toxic chemicals they created.
Again, there is tens of thousands sites like this across the nation. They were created long before any environmental regulations, in other words no one broke the law in their creation. The responsible party is typically no longer in business.
The bulk of the funding for cleaning up these sites whether it's coal, gold or <insert any type of mine> comes from active coal mining.
Good point! We need to close down factories and mines that create these toxic chemical that are lethal in minute concentrations!
The issue that created this couldn't be done today, they didn't have the technology to remove water like they do now.
Instead they would create drainage tunnels or use a played out area for drainage. I don't know the particular situation here but there is other mines in the area. Those mines probably drain into this one, you can't just simply plug it up becsue it will come out somewhere else.
IMHO - based on very little information I wonder why the acid run off from these mines was not channeled to a central treatment facility where the metals and the sulfur could have been recovered and sold to partially pay for the efforts.
I would assume that was what they breached but I don;t know this particular situation. What they do in my area is build a series of holding ponds that are adaptable to aquatic plants, basically a man made wetland. This allows everything to settle before the water leaves the holding ponds.
I would imagine there is potential to profit from it however I also doubt any private company is going to want to take on that responsibility. They'll go elsewhere without the liability.
...but I also hope that the attention this has received will also lead to something being done about the actual problem, which is 1000's of gallons of this stuff flowing into our rivers every single day. Unfortunately this screw up pretty much guarantees the cost of this will fall entirely on the taxpayer and not the folks that actually caused the problem and walked away with the profits.
Again, there is being something done about it. Every single ton of coal that is mined from active mining operations has a fee applied that goes into a fund to clean up these sites. It doesn't matter what type of mine it was those funds are used for any type of mining site. The bulk of the funding for cleaning up these sites comes from those fees.
If you look here they even highlighted this project at the bottom of the page:
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