February 04, 2016 02:47 PM UTC

Enough Is Enough: Durango Demands Superfund

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Durango Herald’s Jonathan Romeo reports, patience in the city of Durango with continued dickering by officials in upstream San Juan County and Silverton over requesting Environmental Protection Agency National Priorities List designation for the cleanup of disused mines near Silverton has reached its limit:

Nearly six months after the Gold King mine blowout, and with Silverton still in limbo over Superfund, a sense that downstream communities should take a larger role in negotiations regarding the Environmental Protection Agency’s hazardous cleanup program is growing.

At the San Juan Citizens Alliance’s quarterly meeting Wednesday, several Durango and La Plata County residents urged local officials to take the reigns in pursuing a Superfund designation in time to make the EPA’s March listing.

“San Juan County’s concerns are speculative,” said La Plata County resident Frank Lockwood. “Our concerns are not speculative. Ours are real. We’ve defined them economically, and I think our government officials should move forward.”

Last month, the wheels appeared greased for all of the local governments affected by the August minewater spill above Silverton into a tributary of the Animas River to put aside dreams of resumed mining and finally allow the Environmental Protection Agency to bring the full resources to bear to clean up the massive problem. It was an EPA work crew that accidentally triggered the release of millions of gallons of contaminated mine waste water, but their mishap was little more than ripping the scab off a much bigger and older problem–a problem that has threatened the health, safety, and prosperity of tens of thousands of people downstream along the Animas River for many years. Resistance from mining and commercial interests in San Juan County (population 692) is the principal reason that Superfund status wasn’t granted to this area, and the reason why only this ill-prepared investigative crew was working the problem.

[Hermosa resident Clint] Kearns questioned whether Silverton and San Juan County’s list of demands were a “poison pill” to put off Superfund status, a program the community has strongly opposed for more than 20 years, citing concerns over a perceived stigma the designation would bring to a town dependent on a delicate tourism economy…

In Silverton’s defense, John Whitney, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colorado, said the community to the north’s concerns are not unreasonable, and despite the delay, he believes an agreement can be reached by next week.

The concern is that the delay by Silverton and San Juan County in joining downstream cities in requesting Superfund designation may already have blown the chance to be considered in the first of the EPA’s two annual rounds of evaluations. Sen. Michael Bennet’s involvement in bringing the parties together to get a deal is nonetheless commendable–and stands in stark contrast to the area’s Congressman Scott Tipton, whose disingenuous vilification of the EPA after the spill makes him part of the problem not the solution.

And that solution is: the citizens who rely on the Animas River need the Superfund. They need the EPA.