{"id":104438,"date":"2016-06-26T23:11:11","date_gmt":"2016-06-27T05:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/new-mexico-sues-colorado-over-gold-king-mine-spill\/"},"modified":"2016-06-26T23:11:11","modified_gmt":"2016-06-27T05:11:11","slug":"new-mexico-sues-colorado-over-gold-king-mine-spill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/new-mexico-sues-colorado-over-gold-king-mine-spill\/","title":{"rendered":"New Mexico sues Colorado over Gold King Mine spill"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A
A worker walks around one of five retentions ponds constructed in August below the Gold King Mine to collect sediment before the water enters Cement Creek. The state of New Mexico is suing the state of Colorado over the Gold King Mine spill.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

ALBUQUERQUE \u2013 New Mexico is suing the state of Colorado, saying its northern neighbor should be held responsible for the contamination from a massive mine waste spill last year as well as decades of toxic drainage from mines near the headwaters of a shared river.<\/p>\n

The New Mexico Attorney General\u2019s Office<\/a> and the state Environment Department<\/a> announced late Wednesday that they filed a complaint against Colorado with the U.S. Supreme Court. It seeks damages and demands that Colorado address problems at the mines.<\/p>\n

It marks the second major legal salvo fired by New Mexico in the wake of the August 2015 spill, which fouled rivers in three Western states with a bright-yellow plume of arsenic, lead and other heavy metals. The state also is suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency<\/a> and the owners of two mines.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had hoped EPA and Colorado would try to work with us and come up with solutions,\u201d New Mexico Environment Secretary Ryan Flynn told The Associated Press. \u201cBut the state of Colorado, its leadership, seems intent on defending EPA at every turn and is unwilling to work with us to move forward in a meaningful manner.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Colorado governor\u2019s office said it is disappointed New Mexico has chosen \u201ccostly and time-consuming litigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the Gold King Mine spill was a striking reminder throughout the West that there are thousands of abandoned mines that would benefit from joint cleanup efforts, the litigation doesn\u2019t impact our commitment to addressing the challenges posed by historic mine drainage,\u201d the governor\u2019s office said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The EPA has declined to comment on the lawsuit, but it has said it takes responsibility for the cleanup at the Gold King Mine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have done what I can within the bounds of my power and authority as attorney general to resolve this matter without litigation,\u201d Colorado Attorney General Cynthia H. Coffman said Thursday in a statement. \u201cIt is unfortunate that New Mexico has chosen to sue the state of Colorado over the Gold King Mine spill when it was EPA\u2019s actions that sent acid mine drainage pouring into the Animas River last August. It\u2019s unclear to me how suing Colorado furthers the states\u2019 mutual goal of holding the EPA to its promise to \u2018take full responsibility\u2019 for turning our rivers yellow.\u201d<\/p>\n

An agency contractor accidentally triggered the spill. Wastewater made its way into the Animas River and eventually down to the San Juan River, setting off a major response by government agencies and private groups.<\/p>\n

During the spill, water utilities shut down intake valves and farmers stopped drawing from the rivers as the plume moved downstream.<\/p>\n

The EPA said water quality quickly returned to pre-spill levels. But New Mexico officials and others warn about heavy metals collecting in the sediment and getting stirred up each time rain or snowmelt results in runoff.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit against Colorado details the results of recent soil samples taken north of Durango, where discolored sediment was visible at residential properties. The results showed lead at concentrations far above the risk level established by the EPA.<\/p>\n

It also outlines the business and regulatory history of the Sunnyside Gold Mine, where operators were allowed to install plugs that eventually caused wastewater to back up and fill the mine. That led to problems at nearby mines.<\/p>\n

The shuttering of a water-treatment plant for mine discharge further aggravated the situation, according to New Mexico officials.<\/p>\n

By 2011, acidic drainage from four inactive mines at and above the former treatment plant \u2013 including at Gold King Mine \u2013 was pouring into Cement Creek, a tributary of the Animas River, at a rate of nearly 850 gallons per minute, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Gold King Mine release was the coup de gr\u00e2ce of two decades of disastrous environmental decision-making by Colorado, for which New Mexico and its citizens are now paying the price,\u201d the lawsuit says.<\/p>\n

New Mexico contends Colorado\u2019s conduct now and in the past and the resulting contamination amounts to a public nuisance.<\/p>\n

New Mexico and Colorado officials had been in talks for months, and Flynn said the state is still open to discussions in hopes of settling with the EPA and Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re here out of necessity,\u201d the environment secretary said. \u201cI would prefer to spend time and resources resolving this rather than duking it out in court.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Colorado attorney general: Lawsuit doesn\u2019t help cleanup<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":104439,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5742,5735],"tags":[304,222,13,2461,1373,239,1518,295,303],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-104438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-news","tag-animas-river","tag-environmental-pollution","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-gold-king-mine-spill","tag-litigation","tag-mining","tag-rivers","tag-water","tag-water-pollution"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104438","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=104438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104438"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=104438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}