{"id":109805,"date":"2015-09-08T06:01:00","date_gmt":"2015-09-08T12:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/la-plata-wants-epa-payback\/"},"modified":"2015-09-08T06:01:00","modified_gmt":"2015-09-08T12:01:00","slug":"la-plata-wants-epa-payback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/la-plata-wants-epa-payback\/","title":{"rendered":"La Plata wants EPA payback"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Water
Water flows out of the Gold King Mine north of Silverton on Aug. 18. La Plata County officials are in the process of creating an agreement to recoup costs it had to deal with after millions of gallons of contaminated water flooded the Animas River.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

County staff reports the county has spent about $178,000 responding to the Aug. 5 Gold King Mine spill, which unleashed about 3 million gallons of acidic wastewater into the Animas River.<\/p>\n

A team contracted by the EPA was doing remedial work at the mine portal and, underestimating the water pressure, accidentally caused the spill.<\/p>\n

La Plata County requested the federal agency issue an initial response reimbursement of $200,000 to cover expenses, such as overtime compensation for staff. In order to receive that money, commissioners must adopt a co-opt agreement outlining expectations and goals with the EPA.<\/p>\n

Goals reach far beyond the Aug. 5 disaster.<\/p>\n

The agreement could include language addressing long-term monitoring measures and La Plata\u2019s overall environmental health.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not necessarily about the Gold King Mine incident anymore,\u201d Commissioner Gwen Lachelt said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis took everyone by surprise, even those who worked on this intimately and knew there was always a concern there could be a bigger spill,\u201d she later told The Durango Herald.<\/p>\n

Lachelt said cleanup of Cement Creek, a contaminated Animas tributary unlivable for wildlife, should be among top priorities.<\/p>\n

She and her colleagues considered looking to other organizations in Colorado for guidance, but Peter Butler, co-coordinator of the Animas River Stakeholders Group, pushed the commission to take advantage of the chance to steer the agreement in its favor.<\/p>\n

Once a final draft is complete, the commissioners will vote on it.<\/p>\n

Next week, commissioners will hear the results of an independently conducted water sampling study and compare their data with the EPA\u2019s in order to rest the minds of county residents who don\u2019t trust the federal agency\u2019s findings.<\/p>\n

Commissioners seek reimbursement for this cost as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

flows out of the Gold King Mine north of Silverton on Aug. 18. La Plata County officials are in the process of creating an agreement to recoup costs it had to deal with after millions of gallons of contaminated water flooded the Animas River.Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file photo County staff reports the county has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":109806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[308,629],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-109805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-local-elections","tag-southern-ute-indian-tribe"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109805","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=109805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109805"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=109805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}