SILVERTON — Three days after EPA workers triggered a huge blowout at a festering mine in southwestern Colorado, a mustard-colored plume — still fed by 548 gallons leaking per minute — stretched more than 100 miles, spreading contaminants including cadmium, arsenic, copper, lead and zinc.

Environmental Protection Agency regional chief Shaun McGrath on Saturday conceded that federal officials know the levels of the heavy metals in Cement Creek and the Animas River but would not reveal early testing results. “Those data sheets have not been finalized by the scientists,” McGrath said. “As soon as we are able to release them, we will.”
Potentially toxic contaminants had spread as far as a domestic well 60 miles away near Durango, which La Plata County officials said has prompted them to launch a well-testing operation for hundreds of residents. City water and irrigation intake gates were being shut in New Mexico and Navajo Country as the plume, moving at about 5 miles per hour, flowed from the Animas into the San Juan River.


Recent rain raised the prospect that yellow-orange sludge deposited along now-deadened black creek banks could be washed again into the Animas causing more harm. EPA crews sampling water had not tested the sludge, settling up to a half-inch thick at slower parts of the Animas above Durango (pop. 17,000). La Plata County director of emergency management Butch Knowlton said the sludge would be tested one way or another to protect public health. “The population that lives along this river is at the mercy of the EPA,” he said.

And EPA officials at a command post in Durango could not rule out the possibility that contaminants will remain concentrated enough to appear yellow on Sunday when the plume is expected to approach Lake Powell and the Grand Canyon, carved by the Colorado River.

This part of the Animas River Valley is mostly organic farms and Grass- fed beef ranches. It’s also the location of many movies including “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, where the Durango to Silverton Steam train as well as the river itself was used in numerous scenes. I lived on the Animas River for several years, it wasn’t uncommon to encounter hundreds of Elk along the river, as well as black bear, coyote, mountain lion, deer etc. This River is part of the Colorado River system, so it flows into Lake Powell, the Grand Canyon, well…you get the picture. I filmed this admittedly poor quality cell phone video while walking my dog along the river a little over a year ago.