Part 2
The EPA Response
Evan R. Tweedie
The EPA was later held as one of the main responsible parties in this Gold King Mine spill, since they were the official organization in charge of the on-site excavation of the Gold King Mine’s level 7 adit that led to initial discharge of water from the mine’s entrance. This essay will serve as a literature review of multiple perspectives on the EPA’s response following this disaster, as well as an evaluation of the EPA’s approach to the remediation of the spill.
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One notable source of information for the EPA’s response to the Gold King Mine Spill is the EPA themself. The EPA has a collection of pages on their website devoted to information about the Gold King Mine spill. One of these is titled “Roles of EPA and Other Responders After the 2015 Gold King Mine Release”. There, they briefly go over some of the measures that they took following the spill. According to the EPA, they “worked closely with response agencies and state and local officials to ensure the safety of citizens, respond to concerns, and evaluate impact to water contaminated by the spill” (EPA 2023). They also give some contact information for additional resources on their response. There isn’t a whole lot of specific information on this page, but it does say that the EPA was involved with facilitating mine discharge treatment following the spill with a series of settling ponds where lime and sodium hydroxide were added. These treatments were said to be effective, managing to heighten the pH of Cement Creek to around 5.0-5.5. No additional information is given. Outside of this, the EPA lists some of the other organizations that were involved in the response to the Gold King Mine Spill. These include the US Geological Survey (USGS), US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), New Mexico Environment Department, Colorado Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office, Navajo Nation and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Southern Ute Indian Tribe Water Quality Program. Though this is a start, the page doesn’t have a whole lot of helpful information regarding the EPA’s response.
The EPA does, however, have more information regarding their response on another page, titled “Frequent Questions Related to the Gold King Mine Response”. On this page, the EPA talks about some of the continual screening they’re currently conducting on the area, as well as allocating $2 million to various tribes’ monitoring plans, including the Southern Ute Tribe and Navajo Nation. As an agency, they are currently “examining water quality, sediment quality, biological community and fish tissue at 30 locations under a variety of flow and seasonal river conditions” (EPA 2023). They also say that they have proposed the Bonita Peak Mining District (the Superfund site surrounding the Gold King Mine) to be added to the National Priorities List (NPS), which would prioritize remediation of the site. Additionally, the EPA explains their current system, which consists of five treatment ponds and the water treatment plant, which use lime to raise the pH of the water, thus allowing heavy metals to precipitate out of the water and settle (EPA 2023).​
The Gold King Mine's level 7 adit on the day of the Gold King Mine spill (Photo: EPA)
​​ One source with more information about the EPA’s emergency response to the Gold King Mine spill is Gold King Mine Spill: Environmental Law and Legal Protections for Environmental Responders by Clifford J. Villa. The second part of this report goes over the immediate response from the EPA directly after the spill. Immediately after the mine release, once the safety of everyone on-site was ensured, the EPA’s on-scene coordinator and contractor crew went back to the adit, managing to rebuild berms and reroute the mine flow. The immediate response also involved notifying downstream parties, which was made difficult for the on-site crew due to the lack of cell reception and washed-out road from the mine release. The crew did, however, manage to contact other contractors and CDRMS personnel downstream, who immediately drove to Silverton to contact other parties, including the Department of Homeland Security, Department of the Interior, EPA Region 8 Emergency Operations Center, and CDPHE (Villa 2019). After the EPA realized the true scale of the event, they “mounted what eventually became one of the largest emergency responses in its history, deploying more than 210 emergency response personnel from across the country (Villa 2019). This involved taking pre- and post-spill samples from surface water, sediment, and water from private wells, delivering drinking water to affected communities, and supplying water and hay bales for agricultural use. On-site, work was being done on a temporary treatment system for the continual flow from the Gold King Mine. This was followed by several public meetings that the EPA participated in with affected communities in Silverton, Durango, and the Navajo Nation. Fortunately, the results from the EPA’s emergency response testing showed that the immediate effects of the spill were not as bad as people feared. They showed that out of the 540 tons of metals released into the Animas River, “approximately 96% consisted of aluminum or iron, while less than 2.4% consisted of more toxic metals such as arsenic, cadmium, copper, lead, and zinc (Villa 2019). There were also no reported fish kills in the Animas River or observed impacts on terrestrial animals of benthic macroinvertebrates (Villa 2019).​​​​​
The Gold King Mine site on the day of the spill (Photo: AP)
One resource that focuses more on the EPA’s long-term response to the Gold King Mine spill is “A Potent Focusing Event: The Gold King Mine Spill and Rapid Policy Development” by Brad T. Clark, taken from the book Gold Metal Waters (2021). This section focuses on how the area was officially considered for the Superfund site listing by the EPA. A Superfund site is an area controlled by the EPA that has been contaminated with hazardous materials and is subject to long-term remediation (EPA 2024). Prior to the Gold King Mine spill, the area was considered by the EPA for Superfund listing, beginning in the 1990s. However, every time an announcement was made by the EPA to consider the area for Superfund, the offer faced strong opposition from Silverton’s residents, fearing it would result in decreased property values and reductions in sales and taxes revenues for local businesses (Clark 2021). This local opposition of the Superfund listing quickly turned following the spill. “After considering the alternatives, the Town of Silverton’s Board of Trustees and the San Juan County commissioners voted unanimously on November 23, 2015, to instruct town officials to pursue Superfund listing” (Clark 2021). Then, after significant revising between San Juan County, the EPA, and the State of Colorado, the area surrounding the Gold King Mine (named the Bonita Peak Mining District) was formally recognized under the Superfund listing on April 7, 2016, giving the EPA full control on the remediation of the area going forward.​​​
The inside of the Gold King Mine's level 7 adit (Photo: Joe Amon, The Denver Post)
Another piece from Gold Metal Waters (2021) that speaks out on the EPA response aspect of the Gold King Mine spill in chapter 9 “The Problems of Litigating Hardrock Mining”, written by Michael A. Dichio, a political scientist. In this section, Dichio goes over some of the complex issues that surround acid mine drainage remediation in the area surrounding the Gold King Mine. In one section, he takes a stance on the EPA’s Superfund listing of the site: The Superfund designation has demonstrated “that the severity of the Gold King Mine spill and the broader environmental problem had polluted waterways in the West. But serious problems remain” (Dichio 2021). He then goes on to explain how the Superfund enforcement on mining sites presents an array of challenges, including the liability of the remediation of the site, which, under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), is placed on mining companies as well as the current operators on the site, which in this case, is the EPA (Dichio 2021). This statute undermines the idea that the Superfund listing helps the enforcement of remediation in the area, since it presents a legal battle between who is liable for the disaster, thus delaying efforts for cleanup of the site.​
The now-stabilized level 7 adit of the Gold King Mine (Photo: Jerry McBride, The Durango Herald)
​ The final source I found providing information on the EPA’s response in the Gold King Mine spill is River of Lost Souls (2018) by Jonathan P. Thompson. This source provided lots of information on the effects of the Gold King Mine Spill, but didn’t go too in-depth in the EPA’s response specifically. However, it did provide some information on the EPA’s actions following the spill in the chapter “Aftermath”. This includes the Superfund designation, which was made official by the EPA, as well as the addition of the new water treatment plant that was installed outside the Gold King Mine: “within weeks of the Gold King Mine spill the EPA built a new water treatment system at the American Tunnel… to deal with Gold King discharges. While acid mine drainage from the Red & Bonita, Mogul, and American Tunnel continues to dump into Cement Creek, the EPA hopes to start running those discharges through the plant, as well” (Thompson 2018).
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All of these sources work together to paint a picture of the EPA in the light of the Gold King Mine spill. The EPA’s response in the disaster certainly had a lot of angles, from the immediate responses that happened on-site and in affected communities, to the ongoing efforts to remediate the area through the Superfund listing and proposition to be added to the National Priorities List. Though there are some problems with some of the solutions that the EPA has proposed over time, as shown in Dichio’s essay, these sources go on to show that the EPA didn’t take the disaster lightly and took part in numerous actions to ensure the safety of those affected from the spill.
Works Cited
Clark, Brad T. Gold Metal Waters, edited by Brad T. Clark and Pete McCormick, University Press of Colorado, 2021.
“Introduction: From Gold Medal to Gold Metal Waters.” pp. 3-28.
“A Tale of Two Places: The Upper and Lower Animas River Watersheds on Southwest Colorado.” pp. 29-56.
“A Potent Focusing Event: The Gold King Mine Spill and Rapid Policy Development.” pp. 71- 105.
“Divergent Perspectives on AMD Remediation in the Upper and Lower Animas
Watersheds: Pre- and Post-Spill Policy Preferences.” pp. 239-262.
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Dichio, Michael A. “The Problems with Litigating Hardrock Mining.” Gold Metal Waters, edited
by Brad T. Clark and Pete McCormick, University Press of Colorado, 2021, pp. 218-238.
“Frequent Questions Related to Gold King Mine Response.” EPA, updated 2023,
https://www.epa.gov/goldkingmine/frequent-questions-related-gold-king-mine-response.​
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Perkins, Luke. “Gold King Mine Spill.” Colorado Encyclopedia,
https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/gold-king-mine-spill.​
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“Roles of EPA and Other Responders After the 2015 Gold King Mine Release.” EPA, updated
2023, https://www.epa.gov/goldkingmine/roles-epa-and-other-responders-after-2015-gold- king-mine-release.
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Thompson, Jonathan P. “Aftermath.” River of Lost Souls, edited by Jonathan P. Thompson,
2018, Torrey House Press, pp. 277-282.
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Villa, Clifford J. “The Emergency Response.” Gold King Mine Spill: Environmental Law and
Legal Protections for Environmental Responders, University of New Mexico School of Law, 2019, pp. 267-272.