Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye in response to reports that Colorado officials are disputing claims made by the EPA regarding the Gold King Mine Spill asked how the Nation can “trust the EPA?” The President was responding to a letter obtained by the Associated Press from Mike King, executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources.
In that letter to the EPA, King asserts that the agency was not telling the truth when it said state regulators approved a plan to unplug the abandon mine: “The Gold King Mine Spill culturally and economically devastated the Navajo people. Colorado officials now claim that the EPA has not been truthful regarding the events leading up to the spill.
President Begaye released a statement in which he said: “If true, these allegations further undermine the EPA’s credibility and supports our calls that an independent federal department lead efforts to correct and remedy the harms caused by the spill. “How can we trust the EPA to keep its word and address this crisis? The Navajo people have been waiting for months for the full and fair recovery we deserve. It’s past the time for the Administration, federal agencies and all responsible parties to step up and make the Navajo people and the Navajo Nation whole for the serious harms caused by the Gold King Mine Spill.”
In August, Arizona State Representative Bob Thorpe has issued a statement in support of the Navajo Nation, and President Russell Begaye’s demand that Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials be held fully and legally responsible to their own stringent legal environmental standards.
At the time he said, “This spill is a gross violation of the Federal Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts, and the EPA’s recently announced and controversial Waters of the U.S. rulemaking. This tragedy once again highlights the need for the states, and not the Federal government, to have full and complete control and autonomy over the environmental policies and practices within their borders. EPA officials must be held fully and legally responsible to their own stringent legal environmental standards. To this end, I stand with the Navajo people and with their President, Russell Begaye.”
Related article: Navajo Nation To Take Action Against EPA
On August 5th, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) caused a 3 million gallon toxic waste water spill near Silverton, CO, which is still leaking at a rate of 720,000 gallons per day from the Gold King Mine that was closed in 1929. The dangerous toxic plume, which is traveling at 4 miles per hour, has migrated into Colorado waterways and has now also entered the navigable waters of the San Juan and Colorado Rivers, polluting Colorado, New Mexico and the vast Navajo Nation, which is approximately the size of West Virginia and larger than 10 – U.S. states.
The mustard-colored toxic sludge should enter Arizona and Utah’s shared Lake Powell on about August 12th, which is a critical natural resource for water storage, hydroelectricity, and a prized sportsman and recreational area. Next, the toxic sludge will flow through the Grand Canyon National Park, into Lake Mead and onward to the Pacific Ocean. EPA testing data released on August 9th from the Animas River near Durango, CO reported 300 times the normal arsenic levels and 3,500 times the normal lead levels. Arsenic and lead pose significant health dangers to humans, wildlife, ecosystems and natural habitats including threatened and endangered species, whose protection by the Federal government are mandated by the Federal Endangered Species Act.