From The Denver Post (Bruce Finley):
Feb. 21 confab in Washington, D.C., with the EPA-triggered Gold King disaster still roiling, Hickenlooper determined that a consensus had emerged: make tackling these tens of thousands of ecological time bombs a priority.
“There was a consensus the time is now,” Hickenlooper said, conveying his vision in an interview last week. “Let’s get a thorough inventory, assess — or, let’s say, reassess because almost all these mines have been assessed in the past — and begin looking at real timelines. How much would this cost? And what would be the best way to get the maximum reduction in toxicity?”
The problem is huge, even after so many Superfund cleanups, Hickenlooper said, “but it doesn’t mean you quit.”
“What Gold King did is put it front and center,” he said. “So, I think, there is a willingness to go.”
As part of the push, Hickenlooper said he would like to call a water summit at Four Corners with governors from New Mexico, Arizona and Utah.
And he’s “all for” turning Silverton, beneath the Gold King Mine in southwestern Colorado, into a research hub to find the best way to neutralize old mines — short of installing water treatment plants on every contaminated waterway.
