Knowing how litigious American society has become, it is no surprise that the idea of suing the Environmental Protection Agency was one of the first responses after last week’s spill of mining waste into the Animas River. Taking that agency to task might have an emotional appeal, but at this point, too little is known and too many questions remain unanswered.
Better to wait and see how things are handled going forward. There is a lot to do and to learn before any legal action would make sense.
After a disaster like the spill, it is perfectly natural to expect our elected officials to do something. And in general, they have. Local authorities took action immediately and instituted appropriate controls.
Other officials have less of a hands-on role in the immediate aftermath, but are helpful nonetheless in shepherding both near- and long-term remedies. Durango and the Animas have been visited by both of Colorado’s U.S. senators – Democrat Michael Bennet and Republican Cory Gardner – both of whom have also made their concerns known to the head of the EPA. Tuesday saw a visit from Colorado’s Gov. John Hickenlooper and on Wednesday both EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy and Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman showed up.
That kind of political muscle descending on Durango does not go unnoticed. Bennet, Gardner, Hickenlooper and Coffman were here to send a message to the effect that this is important and that the EPA needs to get it together. McCarthy was here to say: Message received.
It is no secret that the EPA screwed up. A crew working on the Gold King Mine above Silverton inadvertently triggered the spill while trying to plug the mine. And the agency has been rightly criticized for its slow initial response, especially in communicating to local authorities.
But there is so far no evidence that the spill was the result of institutional negligence or sloppy behavior. And there will be plenty of time to take legal action should anything like that come to light.
It is also heartening that McCarthy acted Wednesday to halt all EPA field work on mines nationwide while the agency looks into what happened at the Gold King Mine. That is the response of someone who understands the severity of this mess and takes her role seriously.
It is altogether unsurprising that the EPA’s many critics on the political right are using this episode as an excuse to bash the agency for its mistake at Gold King. And if it turns out there has been misbehavior, suing the agency may be appropriate. Such an action should be based on the facts, however, not emotion or fundamental antipathy.
Talking to the Herald on Wednesday, Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman said, “I would take my time to ask what the EPA foresees in terms of remediation and costs, and obviously they are the folks who know how to supervise a cleanup, so I think they would be able to tell us what their timeline is and what they expect potential damages to be.”
That is the right response. At this point everyone’s attention should be focused on protecting public health, securing the health of the river and finding the best path forward on cleaning up old mines and mining waste.
Those should be everyone’s immediate concerns. But we should all see how the EPA does on those and before deciding about any possible legal action. There will be plenty of time to sue.
