{"id":71912,"date":"2017-03-06T22:23:14","date_gmt":"2017-03-07T05:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/silverton-calling-for-federal-mine-funding\/"},"modified":"2017-03-07T05:23:14","modified_gmt":"2017-03-07T05:23:14","slug":"silverton-calling-for-federal-mine-funding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/silverton-calling-for-federal-mine-funding\/","title":{"rendered":"Silverton calling for federal mine funding"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Sludge
Sludge from the Gold King Mine wastewater spill in Silverton coats the banks of the Animas River just north of Durango on Aug. 7, two days after an estimated 3 million gallons of contaminated water spilled from the mine north of Silverton.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Local officials in Silverton are urging Congress to provide funding to address the long-term acid mine drainage from the many mines above the town. But they aren\u2019t necessarily looking for Superfund dollars.<\/p>\n

In a joint resolution, officials laid out projects that would be necessary to prevent another disaster such as the Gold King Mine blowout that released an estimated 3 million gallons of metal-laden water Aug. 5 and closed both the Animas and San Juan rivers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most important thing is this never happens again,\u201d said Bill Gardner, town administrator.<\/p>\n

He apologized during a Durango City Council meeting Tuesday and explained the document that the Silverton Town Board signed Monday and the San Juan Board of County Commissioners passed Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cA piece of my heart is broken,\u201d Gardner, a former Durango resident, said.<\/p>\n

Silverton officials are seeking funds to mitigate the current environmental and economic impacts on downstream communities, including impacted Native American reservations, Gardner said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe recognize that this is a regional problem and that it starts in our neighborhood,\u201d William Tookey, a San Juan County administrator, said in a prepared statement.<\/p>\n

They want a broad approach that would address draining mines across the whole Upper San Juan Basin.<\/p>\n

A permanent water-treatment facility for the acid mine drainage in upper Cement Creek and field work to identify and address other mine portals that could blow out were also requested.<\/p>\n

The joint resolution did not list a dollar amount or a federal agency, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, that elected leaders think should provide the money.<\/p>\n

Officials are open-minded on how the disaster funds could be appropriated, and town officials are neutral on the question of a Superfund designation. But Superfund has been underfunded for a long time, and local officials are looking for a more immediate remedy, he said.<\/p>\n

A solution will not come cheap.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need millions of dollars for this, because science isn\u2019t cheap, and construction isn\u2019t cheap,\u201d he told the councilors.<\/p>\n

The town is working with Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, and others on a funding designation, and local officials are trying to work fast while the problem still has national attention, Gardner said.<\/p>\n

Work on the Gold King Mine is ongoing, and about 30 crew from the EPA and contractors are closing down the mine for the winter and making sure the water can be diverted to a treatment area at the nearby Red and Bonita Mine, Gardner said.<\/p>\n

Silverton resolution (PDF)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

treatment, mitigation the top priorities<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":71913,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[304,21,13,239,327],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-71912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-animas-river","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-mining","tag-silverton"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71912","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=71912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71912"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=71912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}