{"id":18370,"date":"2025-08-03T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/10-years-after-gold-king-mine-spill-locals-reflect-on-need-for-patience\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:03:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:03:30","slug":"10-years-after-gold-king-mine-spill-locals-reflect-on-need-for-patience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/10-years-after-gold-king-mine-spill-locals-reflect-on-need-for-patience\/","title":{"rendered":"10 years after Gold King Mine Spill, locals reflect on need for patience"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Ty
Ty Churchwell, mining coordinator for Trout Unlimited and secretary for the Community Advisory Fund, talks Wednesday about how the Gold King treatment plant was built in a couple of months and up and running after the Gold King Mine spill in 2015 about 8 miles north of Silverton. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

SILVERTON \u2013 The streets of Silverton buzz with summer tourists in late July. Passengers disembark from the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, duck into gift shops, sip beers at saloons and snap photos of the jagged peaks that surround the historic mining town.<\/p>\n

Few are thinking about the Gold King Mine spill, even as its 10-year anniversary approaches.<\/p>\n

Even locals living near the Bonita Peak Mining District Superfund site \u2013 created in the wake of the 2015 disaster \u2013 rarely dwell on it.<\/p>\n

Invisible no longer<\/div>\n

On Aug. 5, 2015, Environmental Protection Agency contractors breached a collapsed mine entrance at the Gold King Mine.<\/p>\n

About 3 million gallons of acidic mine drainage laced with heavy metals poured into Cement Creek, sending a plume of orange water down the Animas and San Juan rivers before settling in Lake Powell over a week later.<\/p>\n

\"Water
Water from the Gold King spill runs near Bakers Bridge on Aug. 6, 2015. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Images of the Animas River colored a toxic, synthetic-looking shade of orange-rust made international headlines and drew the globe\u2019s attention to Silverton and the legacy of environmental contamination left by the mining boom in the West.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a literal tsunami of not only national, but international press,\u201d said DeAnne Gallegos, spokesperson for San Juan County, Colorado.<\/p>\n

In days following, it was confirmed that the actual environmental damage was minor. No fish died and the water quality retained no long-term effects.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was more of a visual emergency than it was a real environmental disaster,\u201d said Ty Churchwell, mining coordinator for Trout Unlimited and secretary for the Community Advisory Fund.<\/p>\n

\"Water
Water from the Gold King Mine flows into settling ponds on Wednesday before entering the Gold King treatment plant, which is about 8 miles north of Silverton. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The spill, he and others said, brought long-overdue attention to an invisible crisis: the legacy pollution from hundreds of abandoned and inactive mines discharging heavy metals into the watershed year-round.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t a fish killer, but yes, people were impacted,\u201d Churchwell said. \u201cBusinesses shut down. Tourism slowed. Tribes were hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n

A catalyst for cleanup<\/div>\n

The immediate response was marked by uncertainty and concern \u2013 not only for the environment, but for the community\u2019s reputation and economy, said Anthony Edwards, Silverton\u2019s representative on the Community Advisory Group.<\/p>\n

In the months following, Silverton\u2019s leaders wrestled with whether to accept a Superfund designation, a term considered to be politically fraught in the tourism-dependent town.<\/p>\n

The spill pushed the region\u2019s move toward the unanimous acceptance of the Bonita Peak Mining District Superfund site designation a year later.<\/p>\n

Many residents worried that a Superfund designation would bring disruption, recalling the experience of other mining towns where extensive cleanup efforts had upended daily life and threatened tourism.<\/p>\n

Still, the community took proactive steps to educate itself and advocate for its interests, which proved a turning point.<\/p>\n

Local leaders studied the experiences of other Superfund towns, distributed books about environmental cleanups, and sent a detailed letter to state and federal officials outlining their concerns and recommendations, Edwards said.<\/p>\n

That collaborative approach helped shape how the Superfund designation was implemented in Silverton: The cleanup efforts were kept outside town limits to minimize the potential negative effects.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been one of biggest successes in the years after the spill, said former Mayor Molly Barela. Silverton is not directly associated with the Superfund site or the presence of toxic pollutants.<\/p>\n

\"Molly
Molly Barela, former Silverton mayor and business owner, talks Wednesday about the Gold King Mine spill 10 years later. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Several business owners said the memory of the spill is no longer on visitors\u2019 minds. All agreed it\u2019s rare for a customer to bring it up.<\/p>\n

Gallegos said those successes are credited to the community\u2019s advocacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was kind of a dance of just trying to figure this out,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I\u2019ve always said, once you sign up for a Superfund with a community, you are in a decades-long arranged marriage with a federal agency.\u201d<\/p>\n

And despite early fears, the tourism industry did not experience the expected decline after the Superfund designation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn some ways, it\u2019s helped us,\u201d said Scott Fetchenhier, San Juan County commissioner and Silverton business owner. \u201cWe have EPA people staying in town. They\u2019re eating in the restaurants, buying liquor at the liquor store and stuff like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the designation, the EPA has completed surface water and soil sampling, built a water treatment plant below the Gold King Mine and prioritized about a dozen sites for early cleanup actions.<\/p>\n

\"San
San Juan County Commissioner and business owner Scott Fetchenhier talks Wednesday about the Gold King Mine spill. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Major stabilization work has been completed at the Red and Bonita Mine, and more than 80 waste piles have been assessed.<\/p>\n

In recent years, the agency entered the remedial investigation phase \u2013 a comprehensive study to guide long-term cleanup decisions. Mitigation work has been completed or is nearly done at 21 of the 48 identified mine sites, according to the EPA\u2019s five-year review.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey either redirected water around mine tailings or somehow made those sites less toxic to the environment,\u201d said Chara Ragland, chairwoman of the Community Advisory Group<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The EPA also constructed a waste repository, which is now nearing completion after delays caused by a lapsed contractor agreement.<\/p>\n

\"The
The waste repository that the Environmental Protection Agency constructed northeast of Silverton to handle the sludge left over from treating the water flowing out of the Gold King Mine is seen Wednesday. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Sludge,
Sludge, a byproduct of the Gold King Mine treatment plant, dries out on Wednesday at the plant about 8 miles north of Silverton. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Gold King Mine remains the only site where contaminated water is actively treated. The water treatment plant, at the base of Bonita Peak near the American Tunnel, was built just months after the spill. It extracts metals such as lead and arsenic from the water and turns them into a solid sludge.<\/p>\n

The treated versions of these metals are completely safe, Churchwell said. So safe that they could be disposed of at the Bondad Landfill if it weren\u2019t so costly to transport.<\/p>\n

A long road and lingering criticisms<\/div>\n

Despite nearly $140 million spent, some locals question the pace and impact of the cleanup.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 10 years, what have they done? They\u2019ve moved a lot of dirt,\u201d Barela said.<\/p>\n

She and others pointed to the success of the now-defunct Animas River Stakeholders Group, a coalition of regional citizens and agencies that had made steady progress cleaning the watershed before the Superfund site was established.<\/p>\n

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