When I first saw the horrible accident that put millions of gallons of poison in the Animas river my heart went out for all the rafting companies that need to make their money in the summer season, the young raft guides who need to make their money for school and all the business in Durango. As a retired river guide/instructor and environmentalist seeing the river colored orange just broke my heart.
My next thought was all those government haters will love pointing fingers at the Environmental Protection Agency, environmentalists and anyone else who does may not agree with their ideology. The EPA contractors did make a major mistake, the EPA should have been more on top of it and the buck stops at the EPA. Who among us that has worked for a living hasn’t made a mistake? These people government or not are just human, some are our friends and neighbors. Not a excuse, just a fact.
I would ask those who fault the EPA what about those who put those mines up there in the first place, then leave them for the government (i.e., taxpayers) to clean up? The EPA was there when a mine owner left toxic soil and vented toxic fumes into Mancos. All the mine owner could do is blame other people and point fingers. The EPA is our first line of defense against greedy corporations and people who think short term and take the money and run. We now know there are about 1,500 abandoned mines above the Animas and 200 that are actively leaking into the streams and the river.
There is talk about making all those abandoned mines into a Super Fund site, I hope so! Once again the owners of those mines either went broke or took the money and ran. We the taxpayer pick up the bill. Living in Wyoming for 22 years I’ve seen this problem over and over again.
A writer to the Journal said keep the EPA away from our beautiful Dolores River. There is still lots of poison up by Rico and I hope the EPA has the funds to clean it up before a disaster hits our backyard river. He said keep the EPA away from the Dolores to protect it. I say keep our county commissioners away from the Dolores if we want to protect it!
Larry Berger
Cortez