State of Emergency: Colorado Wastewater Leak Far Exceeds First Estimates

[UK2K]

Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado declared a state of emergency on Monday, five days after a spill that sent toxic water seeping from an abandoned gold mine and turned a river orange.

The Environmental Protection Agency said Sunday that 3 million gallons of wastewater had spilled, three times as much as earlier estimates, and that health risks to humans and aquatic life were not yet clear.

Hickenlooper said the disaster declaration would allow him to use $500,000 from the state's disaster fund to pay for the response. Some of the money will go toward towns and businesses hurt by the spill.

Dirty ass water. That's what the rivers look like. Not to mention the water is incredibly toxic, and the EPA 'accidentally' underestimated the size of the spill.

Imagine a private citizen doing this? Or a company? Imagine a company dumping 3 million gallons of ass water full of toxic chemicals.

This may change the landscape around there for a long while.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/colorado-mine-spill-toxic-wastewater-leak-far-exceeds-first-estimates-n407091

[bladefd]

If you read up on it, you would read that it was not dumped. It was an accident waiting to happen. The EPA had warned for some time now that the mine was filled with toxic waste and at the risk of spilling. The local township didn't heed the warning so EPA decided to investigate to see how bad it was before it truly spilled into the river. It was much worse than they had thought. Drilling into a rock led to a breach that erupted waste water into the river.

I read one of the comments use a perfect analogy. Imagine a bomb squad unit investigating a bomb in process of trying to diffuse it. If the bomb goes off while they're investigating, you don't yell and blame the bomb squad unit for the bomb. The bomb was there already, they were doing their job of diffusing it.

Too many people I have read have been quick to bash the EPA and why EPA needs to be taken down after this issue. There are strict environmental laws for a reason. If there were no environmental laws and no EPA, will companies and people just automatically stop dumping if nobody is keeping an eye out? Profit bottom line is the main thing companies care about at the end of the day so why the hell would they willingly take a lose for the environment out of the goodness of their heart? :oldlol: Some of the arguments I have seen on social media recently over this and certain news sources are just idiotic.

[Hawker]

That really sucks. I spent a lot of time while living in that area jumping, swimming, rafting, floating and drinking beer on that river (yes, we put the beer cans in drag bags and recycled them). It makes me sad. It really is a beautiful area especially when it's not filled with Texas tourist dbags.

This is not the same though...mines all around that area have leaked for years and EPA is trying to do something to stop it. They wanted to declare it a superfund to get more federal funding but that would've scared tourists away apparently. The mining history is pretty interesting in that area though. Unfortunately, it is damaging.

Like the BP oil spill, it's easy to criticise when you don't have the expertise or knowledge of what happened. So calm down.

Apparently there's a uranium stockpile in one of those mountains as well. That'll be fun in a million years.


They probably should've reported it quicker like they ask private corporations to do but they finally took a step in their shoes and realized it may be more difficult than they perceived.

[You Cant Ban Me]

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