General Discussion

KamaAina

(78,249 posts) Thu Sep 3, 2015, 04:05 PM Sep 2015

30,000 Leaky Mines Contaminating U.S. West's Water Supply

Looks like the Colorado spill may be just the tip of the iceberg.

http://news.discovery.com/earth/30000-leaky-mines-contaminating-us-wests-water-supply-150827.htm

Colorado is still recovering from an August 5 toxic waste spill that turned the Animas River a bright orange color. The leak, which amounted to 3 million gallons, was caused when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency used heavy machinery to investigate pollutants at the Gold King Mine, north of Silverton.

Much of the ire over the mishap has been directed at the EPA, especially after the federal agency’s own internal review revealed that it hadn’t performed a key safety test. According to the report: “Although difficult and therefore expensive and technically challenging, this procedure may have been able to discover the pressurized conditions that turned out to cause the blowout.”

But regardless of what actually caused the blowout, the Gold King Mine accident also calls attention to a much bigger problem that confronts Colorado and other western states. According to a 2011 report by the federal Government Accountability Office, there are at least 161,000 abandoned hardrock mine sites in 12 western states and Alaska. At least 33,000 of those are causing environmental problems, including contamination of surface water and groundwater.

EPA also has estimated that mine drainage has contaminated 40 percent of western watersheds. In Colorado alone, state Department of Public Health and Environment officials told the Denver Post that 230 old mines have contaminated 1,645 miles of rivers and streams.