{"id":103546,"date":"2017-09-15T16:42:11","date_gmt":"2017-09-15T22:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/epa-seeks-public-comments-on-gold-king-mine-project\/"},"modified":"2017-09-15T16:42:11","modified_gmt":"2017-09-15T22:42:11","slug":"epa-seeks-public-comments-on-gold-king-mine-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/epa-seeks-public-comments-on-gold-king-mine-project\/","title":{"rendered":"EPA seeks public comments on Gold King Mine project"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The Environmental Protection Agency is seeking public comments on a project designed to prevent another blowout at the Gold King Mine.<\/span>Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

If you have an opinion on the Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s plans to prevent another blowout at the Gold King Mine, now is your chance to comment.<\/p>\n

The EPA on Tuesday announced that proposed actions at the mine, about 10 miles north of Silverton, were up for public review and comment in a plan called the \u201cGold King Mine Integrated Discharge Controls Removal Action.\u201d<\/p>\n

The work is part of the EPA\u2019s recently declared Bonita Peak Mining District Superfund site, a cleanup project of 48 mining-related sites throughout San Juan County in the Animas River watershed.<\/p>\n

This particular project seeks to reduce the potential of an unplanned discharge, otherwise known as a blowout, from the Gold King Mine.<\/p>\n

An EPA-contracted crew in August 2015, while working on a remediation project, caused a mine blowout at the Gold King. The spill sent 3 million gallons of mine wastewater laced with heavy metals down the Animas and San Juan rivers.<\/p>\n

Since the spill, the EPA has stabilized the entrance of the Gold King with steel bracing and concrete reinforcement.<\/p>\n

However, in this most recent plan, it appears the EPA has already started the project for which it is now seeking public comment.<\/p>\n

According to the EPA\u2019s announcement on Tuesday, it asks the public to review and comment on a plan that calls for drilling a horizontal well within the entrance of the Gold King Mine.<\/p>\n

However, a September \u201cBonita Peak Mining District Update\u201d the EPA sent out earlier this month said the agency has already started drilling the well and expects to be finished by mid-September.<\/p>\n

EPA representatives did not respond to a request for comment on this matter Wednesday. On Thursday, EPA provided the following response in an email:<\/p>\n

\u201cFor these types of removal actions, we are required to make the administrative record available to the public within 60 days of on-site removal activity. At that time, we also provide at least 30-days for the public to comment on the administrative record.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other work includes installing a flow-control structure within the mine entrance and building a berm outside the historic Level 7 mine entrance (the site of the 2015 blowout).<\/p>\n

Go online to http:\/\/bit.ly\/2wo0KU1<\/a> to view the entire document and learn how to comment.<\/p>\n

This story has been updated to include a response from the EPA.<\/p>\n

jromeo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Horizontal well to be drilled at entrance<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":103547,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[174,2138,2306,327],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-103546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-environmental-cleanup","tag-gold-king-mine","tag-mining-issues","tag-silverton"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103546"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=103546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}