{"id":73469,"date":"2016-08-02T21:26:33","date_gmt":"2016-08-03T03:26:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/criminal-investigation-into-gold-king-mine-spill-confirmed\/"},"modified":"2016-08-03T03:26:33","modified_gmt":"2016-08-03T03:26:33","slug":"criminal-investigation-into-gold-king-mine-spill-confirmed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/criminal-investigation-into-gold-king-mine-spill-confirmed\/","title":{"rendered":"Criminal investigation into Gold King Mine spill confirmed"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The
The Gold King Mine as seen from an EcoFlight recently near Silverton. Federal officials announced this week that a criminal investigation in the the Aug. 5, 2015 blowout at the mine is underway.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Environmental Protection Agency Office of Inspector General said in a news release Friday that it launched the criminal probe \u2013 which has been underway since last year \u2013 in response to \u201chigh public interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on requests from several members of the House and Senate, the OIG is conducting both a program evaluation and a criminal investigation of the Gold King Mine spill,\u201d the release stated.<\/p>\n

The Inspector General\u2019s office is an independent office within the EPA that performs audits, program evaluations and investigations of the EPA.<\/p>\n

The news release announcing the criminal probe was distributed across the country, though the release did not make it to The Durango Herald, despite promises by federal officials to prioritize communications with the local community.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people of Durango and Southwestern Colorado should have been the first to know,\u201d said Colorado U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, a Republican.<\/p>\n

In the wake of the Aug. 5, 2015 Gold King Mine spill, the EPA was criticized for delays in communication with local governments and communities.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for the Office of Inspector General apologized for not sending the release to the Durango community and downplayed the significance of it, pointing out that the investigation has been underway for some time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe mistakenly assumed that anyone who was interested in the OIG work would have subscribed on our website to any reports coming out,\u201d said Jeff Lagda, spokesman for OIG.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t think that this would get so much interest because\u2026 it was just simply a pause of the evaluation by our evaluators, but to also let folks know that the ongoing investigation was still continuing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gardner, however, believes there is great significance to the announcement, which confirmed for the first time that a \u201ccriminal\u201d investigation is taking place.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a big deal,\u201d Gardner said. \u201cYou don\u2019t criminally investigate the federal government every day. Maybe they\u2019re trying to downplay this to keep it at a low-key level.\u201d<\/p>\n

The scope of the criminal investigation could be expansive, according to the OIG.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe OIG will investigate any individuals who have a nexus to the potential criminal activity falling under its jurisdiction,\u201d Lagda said. \u201cHowever, any potential criminal activity that is determined to be outside the nexus of the OIG will be referred to the appropriate law enforcement agency.\u201d<\/p>\n

As an example, Lagda said if the potential criminal activity involves a drug crime, it would be referred to the Drug Enforcement Administration, or local law enforcement.<\/p>\n

A letter to U.S. senators on June 29 \u2013 including Gardner \u2013 stated that a program evaluation began on Aug. 17, 2015. On Nov. 4, 2015, the Inspector General\u2019s office identified \u201cadditional issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is investigative material that we cannot reveal in any report about our program evaluation until the investigation reaches a point where the U.S. Department of Justice and the EPA OIG\u2019s Office of Investigations inform us that we may do so,\u201d states the letter to Gardner. \u201cMany of your questions to us, including those that go to the heart of what you asked us to address, directly implicate and will have to be answered in part by investigative results that are not currently releasable.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in April called on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee to subpoena EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy to appear at an April 22 field hearing in Arizona. It wasn\u2019t the first time Congress pushed subpoenas stemming from the disaster.<\/p>\n

Conflicting reports have cast shadows over the conversation, resulting in the House Committee on Natural Resources issuing subpoenas to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and Lt. Gen. Thomas Bostick, with the Army Corps of Engineers.<\/p>\n

In pushing for the subpoenas and additional information, members of Congress also called for a criminal probe into the incident.<\/p>\n

The spill released an estimated 3 million gallons of mustard yellow toxic mining sludge into the Animas River. The polluted water traveled into New Mexico and Utah.<\/p>\n

The EPA has acknowledged fault, which it said was the result of insufficient planning during excavation work at the entrance to the mine near Silverton. Debris gave way after the EPA team failed to properly assess pressure inside the mine.<\/p>\n

In a separate report issued Monday, the EPA reiterated its culpability, but it also worked to connect the state to the incident, suggesting that the Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety was part of the planning.<\/p>\n

State officials, however, have maintained since last year that the state had no oversight over planning and work at the mine.<\/p>\n

The issue could play into two lawsuits stemming from the incident, including one filed by New Mexico against Colorado in the nation\u2019s high court.<\/p>\n

Documents released in February stemming from a congressional investigation into the spill revealed that the EPA was aware of the potential for a blowout and may have deceived the public following the catastrophe.<\/p>\n

Hays Griswold, the EPA employee who led restoration efforts at Gold King, said in an Oct. 28, 2015 internal EPA email that he \u201cpersonally knew it could be holding back a lot of water and I believe the others in the group knew as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Griswold told the Denver Post shortly after the spill that \u201cnobody expected it (the acid water backed up in the mine) to be that high.\u201d A day after the spill, Griswold told The Durango Herald that the EPA planned to clear the dirt blocking the tunnel to install a pipe to pump out the contaminated water in the mine.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s insane is that we are a year out of this spill, and not a single private sector claimant has been repaid by the EPA,\u201d Gardner said. \u201cThat is insane, it\u2019s absurd and it\u2019s offensive.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, added, \u201cThe people of this community have every right to a full accounting of the EPA\u2019s actions or inactions that led to the Gold King Mine disaster and the agency\u2019s failures to communicate and respond in its wake.<\/p>\n

\u201cI welcome this investigation, hope it provides answers to looming questions and delivers accountability that has been sorely missing at the EPA.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Gold King Mine as seen from an EcoFlight recently near Silverton. Federal officials announced this week that a criminal investigation in the the Aug. 5, 2015 blowout at the mine is underway.Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald The Environmental Protection Agency Office of Inspector General said in a news release Friday that it launched the criminal probe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":73470,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[304,21,13,2461,303],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-73469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-animas-river","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-gold-king-mine-spill","tag-water-pollution"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73469","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=73469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73469"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=73469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}