From The Denver Post (Bruce Finley):

EPA chiefs are ordering extra headquarters reviews of all plans for work at blowout-prone old mines — policy tightening aimed at avoiding a repeat of the Gold King disaster.

And Environmental Protection Agency officials on Thursday declared testing is done for a better early-warning system that would alert communities to surges of toxic mine muck.

Separately, the EPA’s internal inspector concluded an investigation finding deficiencies in securing financial guarantees from companies that hurt the EPA’s ability to complete cleanups…

The boosted review reflects efforts to increase work at hundreds of inactive mines contaminating waterways, work that EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy partially suspended in the aftermath of the Aug. 5 Gold King disaster. An EPA crew botched work at the Gold King Mine above Silverton, trying to drain it but triggering a 3 million-gallon torrent of acidic metals-laced mine water that turned the Animas River mustard-yellow…

An EPA inventory, unveiled Thursday, listed some of the worst potential hazard sites — among an estimated 500,000 inactive mines in the West — including four in Colorado. The inventory lists 20 more sites around Colorado where toxic muck is known to be backed up yet the hazard has not adequately been assessed. It lists another 115 inactive mine sites, including 26 in California and more in Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

The new rules require EPA crews to follow best practices to try to ensure that experts with the right engineering and other skills are involved. EPA crews also must give headquarters supervisors a technical assessment of blowout potential before beginning work, written documentation of talks with state and tribal officials and verification that emergency response plans are in place with satellite phones and other equipment available.

At sites where states or tribes lead cleanup, regional EPA officials must define their support roles and, if landowners deemed responsible are involved, document owner willingness to handle emergency response.

“No impactful delays are expected,” EPA spokeswoman Nancy Grantham said.

The EPA this week completed final drills aimed at improving a system for notifying downstream communities ahead of blowouts via e-mail and phones. Improved early-warning plans were done to address concerns after the Gold King disaster raised by people living along the Animas in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and tribal nations.

The EPA’s Inspector General probe found environmental and financial risks resulting from a failure to collect accurate and complete data from companies responsible for contamination. The report said “data quality deficiencies and a lack of internal controls prevent the EPA from properly overseeing and managing its financial assurance program” — which is designed to ease the burden on taxpayers in dealing with environmental disasters.

“If the EPA cannot determine if it has secured valid and sufficient financial assurance instruments from those private parties, taxpayers are at risk for paying significant amounts of those parties’ financial obligations,” the report said. “Public health protections may be delayed or deferred,” it said. And while the EPA is aware of the risks “it has not taken meaningful steps to address the problem” or disclosed this vulnerability.

From The Denver Post (Bruce Finley):

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment estimates that acidic metals-laced mine water contaminates more than 1,600 miles of streams and rivers. There are an estimated 23,000 inactive mines in Colorado — 22,000 on federally managed public land — that companies have abandoned. These are a main source of harm to waterways that affects human health and ecosystems.

While multiple federal and state agencies hold information on inactive mines, there’s no comprehensive data hub that could be used to assess impacts, risks and costs for cleanup.

Government officials from the CDPHE, Colorado Geological Survey, Colorado Department of Natural Resources, U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and Environmental Protection Agency met Wednesday at the regional Forest Service headquarters to focus on how best to share data and identify gaps.

CDPHE and the CGS are leading a $300,000 inventory initiative.

“I don’t think we really know what the cumulative impacts of all these are,” CGS director Karen Berry said.

Colorado officials also advocate legal changes to encourage voluntary cleanups. So-called “good Samaritan” legislation, introduced in Congress, would let companies and conservation groups launch projects to reduce contamination in streams without being liable, under the Clean Water Act, for remaining contamination, state abandoned mines program director Bruce Stover said.

Such a change would make a difference, Stover said, and volunteer groups wouldn’t be held liable if well-intentioned cleanup work causes spills, such as the Aug. 5 Gold Mine incident where a 3-million-gallon torrent turned the Animas River mustard-yellow.

Lawmakers also are considering reform of the nation’s 1872 mining law to charge hard-rock mining companies fees to create a fund that could be used to help deal with drainage from inactive mines.

Gov. John Hickenlooper has met with fellow western governors and federal agency chiefs and found that a consensus has emerged to make cleanup of old mines a priority. At least 230 are known to be draining into Colorado waterways with 148 largely unaddressed — not visited since the 1990s.

State officials say natural resources crews aim to visit those sites and test water this year to assess the harm.