4-22-16

U.S. Sen. John McCain has called for a criminal investigation into what led to a massive spill of mine waste that polluted rivers in three Western states last summer. And BTW, this spill was done BY THE EPA!

Also, the Durango dog park is alongside the Animas River that got a BIG PORTION of the contaminates. My dog gets sick even now whenever she drinks from that horrible river. Will it ever be right again?

McCain, Kirkpatrick hear tales of suffering caused to Navajos by Gold King Mine toxic spill

Navajo farmer Martha Curtis was planning to sell organic vegetables and melons to schools last summer when the Gold King Mine pollution drifting downstream from Colorado turned the San Juan River orange.

Fearing poisoned crops, the Navajos dried up irrigation ditches for three weeks.

Curtis and her husband, both retired in Upper Fruitland, New Mexico, lost everything on their 4 acres except for a few ears of corn that she still hasn’t had the heart to pick.

“It hurts,” Curtis said.

She was in Phoenix on Friday, Earth Day, attending a congressional field hearing. A senate committee is looking into the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s handling of last summer’s Colorado mine-waste spill that the agency’s own cleanup efforts caused.

Two U.S. senators and the Arizona congresswoman who represents the reservation said the agency bungled its response and owes the Navajos for it. Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, called for a criminal investigation of the EPA.

Curtis figures she lost $10,000 — some on paid planting labor, the rest on lost corn, squash, watermelon, spuds and alfalfa that she counts on to augment her retirement. It’s unclear how much, or when, EPA might compensate her and other Navajo farmers.

“Ten thousand dollars is probably nothing to most people,” she said, “but it sure is to me.”

Now, she said, she’s leaving her fields bare this year for fear of renewed contamination when as the river swells with snowmelt and stirs up the metals lying on the bottom.

5.5 million gallons a day

The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs conducted the hearing on the EPA’s response.

Committee members complained that the agency had not adequately warned Navajos of the disaster that headed their way last August and has not done enough to reimburse them and ensure their safety since.

Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyoming, the committee chairman, noted the irony in convening a hearing on Earth Day to explore the agency’s role in “one of the largest environmental catastrophes the region has seen.”

Gold King is an abandoned mine in the Rockies of southwestern Colorado. The EPA was working on a plan to clean up persistent toxic leakage from it and surrounding mines when the blowout sent 3 million gallons flooding into the Animas River.

The mine waste, created when water reacts with exposed metal ores, turned the Animas, and then the San Juan, orange.

An earth plug holding back tainted water at the mine breached when contractors working under EPA supervision dug into it without first conducting a water-pressure test to determine if it was safe.

Heavy metals ultimately flowed through the Navajo Nation waterway, where farms dried up over fears of lead and arsenic.

Utah environmental officials eventually noticed elevated metal counts in water samples where the San Juan enters Lake Powell, but not in dangerous concentrations.

The Gold King work was part of an effort to address 5.5 million gallons of contaminated mine waste that leak less dramatically from Colorado mines into the river every day, EPA officials said. The agency has proposed a Superfund designation that would help secure cleanup funding for 48 such mines.

McCain: ‘People … deserve better answers’

Arizona’s senior senator and the congresswoman who is challenging him for his seat this fall both used the hearing to chastise the EPA for its allegedly slow and negligent response to Navajo hardships.

McCain called on the Justice Department to investigate.

“Native people here in Arizona deserve better answers,” McCain told an EPA official at the hearing in the Phoenix City Council chambers.

Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Arizona, called the EPA’s lack of follow-through with farmer compensation and continuing assurances of clean water “outrageous,” and asked the agency for support with a bill she introduced to ensure adequate reimbursement.

She told Navajo leaders at the hearing that she’s angry they can’t be sure their water isn’t free of lead, which could harm their children’s health and development.

“I’m outraged by the fact that these babies on your tribal land might be drinking contaminated formula,” said Kirkpatrick, who is expected to be the Democratic nominee for McCain’s senate seat in the fall. SOURCE

ARE YOU COMPLETELY PREPARED? 

IT’S THE MOST IMPORTANT PREP YOU CAN DO!   

The Bible tells us that every human has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God which is  is a heart-penetrating truth. He has provided a way to cleanse us of our sins since we can never be “good enough” to cleanse ourselves. That avenue to God’s grace, mercy and forgiveness (the cleansing of our sins) is through His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ of Nazareth Who is equally God.