![This image was taken during the peak outflow from the Gold King Mine spill at 10:57 a.m. Aug. 5. The waste-rock dump can be seen eroding on the right. Federal investigators placed blame for the blowout squarely on engineering errors made by the Environmental Protection Agency’s-contracted company in a 132-page report released Thursday [October 22, 2015]](https://i0.wp.com/coyotegulch.blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/goldkingminespill1057am08052015viaepa.png?ssl=1)
From The Denver Post (Bruce Finley):
Officials with the Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday they are looking forward to talks with Silverton and San Juan County officials about a possible Superfund designation to spur cleanup of leaking inactive mines contaminating Animas River headwaters.
The locals who faced the EPA-triggered Gold King Mine disaster above Silverton Aug. 5 said any designation would have to be narrow covering only the upper Cement Creek drainage — not the town or other heavily mined parts of the county.
They sent a notice to the EPA requesting talks about a priority designation but haven’t heard back, Commissioner Ernest Kuhlman said.
“We don’t want anything bigger than we have to have,” Kuhlman said. “The EPA was thinking about something much bigger.”
Gov. John Hickenlooper would have to endorse any push for a Superfund designation but has indicated he’d support local wishes.
“The EPA would like to expand it to cover a lot of our county,” though not the town, said Peter Butler, co-coordinator of the Animas River Stakeholders Group, which was founded in 1994 to pursue non-Superfund alternatives to get cleanup done. “People are worried about what happens to your property value. Can you get a loan? Can you sell your house?”
No date for talks has been set after a local resolution last week to discuss Superfund possibilities.
The EPA declined Thursday to address the scope of a possible Superfund cleanup. EPA staffers have been studying mining-related contamination of the upper Animas watershed for years and at one point asked to test children in Silverton for lead poisoning…
The local officials said they’d prefer to deal with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, rather than the EPA, but recognize that a Superfund designation would entail an EPA role.