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Washington • The chairman of the House Science Committee on Wednesday said the Environmental Protection Agency's actions in the wastewater spill in Colorado that later polluted the San Juan River and Lake Powell in Utah were "inexcusable" and argued that had a private company been to blame, heads would have rolled.
"The story of the mine disaster would be much different if this spill had been caused by a private company," Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said in opening the first of many congressional hearings scheduled to discuss the Colorado spill that dumped 3 million gallons of contaminated wastewater into the Animas River.
"I suspect there would be calls from this administration and others for the executives of the company to resign," Smith added. "There would be demands that all documents be posted immediately online. Massive fines would be imposed."
The Wall Street Journal reported that the spill was accidentally triggered by the work of EPA contractor Environmental Restoration LLC — a major federal contractor and one of the country's top environmental firms.
The plume of mustard- color wastewater hit downstream rivers in Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. It also flowed into the San Juan River and Lake Powell. Utah Gov. Gary Herbert declared a state of emergency as the spill affected his state last month.
Smith noted that six former officials of a company in West Virginia were indicted for violations of the Clean Water Act after a 2014 spill of 7,500 gallons of toxic water was released into the Elk River there.
"The EPA's negligence is especially inexcusable," Smith said, "since there were known procedures that could have prevented the river's pollution."
Smith did not mention that the six executives of Freedom Industries pleaded guilty earlier this year to environmental crimes and negligence in the West Virginia chemical tank-farm spill just upstream of a regional drinking-water facility. The New York Times reported that the accident cut off drinking water for an estimated 300,000 residents and that at least 100 sought medical treatment.
Texas Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, the top Democrat on the House Science Committee, said Wednesday that while the attention is focused on the wastewater spill, Congress should take the opportunity to note the "inherently dirty, dangerous and environmentally damaging process of metal mining." She added that EPA attempts to contain the leftover waste led to the spill.
"The EPA was acting as an environmental firefighter when they went to the Gold King Mine," she said. "They were attempting to tamp down a raging environmental hazard that had endangered the Animas watershed for decades. Unfortunately, when they opened an exploratory hole, the buildup of wastewater drainage was too much to effectively control."
The head of the Navajo Nation's Environmental Protection Agency joined Republican committee members in slamming the federal government for its response to mitigate the leak's impacts and called for help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
"The lack of a swift and adequate response from the federal government also makes our people feel like the federal government doesn't care about them or their livelihood," Donald Benn, executive director of the tribe's EPA, said in written testimony. "For this community, this response from the federal government is not surprising or new, but is just as crushing now as ever."
Benn added that the federal government needs to take care of the immediate concerns caused by the spill as well as the long-term impacts to the health of the Navajo people, livestock and lands.
No Utah members of Congress sit on the House Science Committee, but a joint hearing is scheduled next week between the House Natural Resources and the Oversight and Government Reform committees, headed by Utah Reps. Rob Bishop and Jason Chaffetz, respectively. Utah has lifted all public advisories issued after the spill, and sediment samples don't show any significant concerns, according to Donna Kemp Spangler, spokeswoman for the Utah Department of Environmental Quality.
"We're not seeing anything that is alarming," Spangler said.
The state's focus now has turned to long-term monitoring of the spill, she added, as well as any further releases from the Gold King Mine, which the EPA was attempting to clean up.
Mathy Stanislaus, the assistant administrator of the EPA's office of solid waste and emergency response, told the Science Committee that the agency will continue working with the affected states, tribal governments and local officials to respond to the "tragic and unfortunate release" from the Gold King Mine.
"The EPA is taking responsibility to ensure that it is cleaned up appropriately," he said. "The EPA is committed to finding out the causes of the release and taking the steps necessary to help ensure that nothing like this release happens again."