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It's a potential disaster — in slow motion.

A hotel owner in Bluff said he is scouring news out of Colorado while the town awaits the arrival of gallons of contaminated water and sludge oozing downstream through the Animas and San Juan rivers.

"We're kind of waiting to see what the story's going to be when it hits the San Juan River and dissipates," said Jim Hook, owner of the Recapture Lodge in Bluff.

But, he said, business hasn't taken too hard a hit just yet. August isn't peak rafting season, and as of Friday afternoon, Hook had had only four or five groups of guests cancel their weekend reservations.

Up to 40,000 people float the San Juan's Utah segments between Sand Island at Bluff, Mexican Hat and Clay Hills, just upstream from where the river meets Lake Powell.

As of Friday, the Bureau of Land Management's Utah office, which manages recreational use of the San Juan, had yet to receive recommendations from federal and state environmental health agencies about what to tell river runners.

In the EPA's last aerial survey at 10 a.m. Friday, the leading edge of the spill, which is bright orange because of its high iron content, but also contains lead and arsenic, was located eight miles north of the Colorado-New Mexico border.

The spill — which is described as being a sort of flowing sludge — is moving much slower than originally anticipated, said Justyn Liff, a public affairs specialist for the Western Colorado office of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. A Friday afternoon news release from the EPA said the best estimates have the plume arriving in Utah sometime Sunday.

At the same time, Liff said, the Bureau of Reclamation has doubled the amount of water released from Navajo Dam, located along the San Juan, just north of its confluence with the Animas River near Farmington, New Mexico. The plan, she said, is to continue the increased flow through the weekend and then take stock on Monday to determine whether the release is effective in diluting the contaminants coming down the San Juan.

The spill will ultimately come to rest at Lake Powell, said Martin Hestmark, an assistant regional manager for the EPA in Denver.

The sludge and its bright orange color may be imperceptible by the time it arrives there, he said, because the sediments in the spill are falling out of the water column and settling into the Animas' riverbed as the plume flows downstream.

Though the spill is more diluted downriver, at its highest concentration near the mine, the pH measured 4.5 — roughly equivalent to the acidity of a soda. EPA toxicologists have suggested that anyone who comes into contact with the contaminated river water rinse themselves off with clean water, Hestmark said.

Concern about the possibility of heavy metals contamination has caused Colorado authorities to close public access to the Animas River. Public drinking water systems that collect water from the Animas or the San Juan have been ordered to turn off their uptake valves.

Two systems in Colorado and four in New Mexico will have to rely on stored water, or turn to alternative sources for the next few days, Hestmark said.

Hestmark said the spill will not impact any public drinking water in Utah.

It is not yet known how the spill will affect fish or wildlife on the two rivers. The Colorado Parks and Wildlife Department has placed cages of 108 sentinel fish in the river, but so far has not released conclusive findings.

According to the EPA news release, a contractor was following an agency plan to investigate contamination at the site of the 1880s-era Gold King Mine north of Silverton when they started drilling above the mine to gain access to a contaminated waste storage pool.

The plan was to insert a pipe into the pool and pump the water out for treatment. But before the pumping could begin, a wall of debris and old timbers gave way, releasing an estimated one million gallons of water and sediment into Cement Creek, a tributary of the Animas.

The breached pool continues to leak about 200 gallons per minute, Hestmark said. The EPA has construction workers onsite building ponds to contain the spill, but they are not expected to finish the work until late Friday or early Saturday.

In Bluff, Hook says residents are worried about the long-term effect the spill will have on the environment after it arrives.

In the absence of clear data about the spill, Utah BLM is advising rafting parties putting in at Sand Island to stay off the San Juan River. For those choosing to run it, officials urge them to minimize contact with the river and take extra water so they would not have to rely on the river for wash water.

"Until we receive information from an agency that has the data on predictions on when it arrives and samples back regarding toxicity, we can't say how the impact will be in southeast Utah," said Don Hoffheins, BLM's Monticello field office manager.

Two parties totaling 11 people put in Thursday and another five were scheduled to put in Friday, according to Hoffheins. One group canceled and another decided to shorten its trip.

Between one and four parties are scheduled to put on each day over the next several days.

Salt Lake Tribune reporter Brian Maffly contributed to this story.