Oh, what a shock. So you heard about that EPA ‘cleanup’ team that cleaned out ‘a million gallons’ of toxic waste from an old mine by dumping it into this river in Colorado, turning it the color of Donald Trump’s hair and probably killing every living thing downstream…
It’s not their fault. They thought the river had a gun.
Well here’s a surprise I’m sure will completely shock you…
EPA: Wastewater Spill 3 Times Worse Than We Thought
Officials now say 3M gallons of Colo. mine wastewater spilled into Animas River
I can’t wait to see what else they want to do for us.
So Joel… Haven’t you ever, with the very best of intentions, tried to do something good, yet had the results turn out to be a complete disaster?
I’m remembering the time that I volunteered to install a safety grab bar in an elderly lady’s bathroom. The very first hole I drilled went straight into a water pipe! I pulled out the drill bit, and literally got squirted in the face, and now her formerly pristine wall was filling with water. I found myself wondering if I really should have agreed to this job.
On reflection, the correct answer was “yes”. That lady really needed that grab bar for her safety.
So back to that horribly polluted hole in the ground: in that case, the EPA was doing something that (hopefully) needed doing. They were trying to fix a hazardous mess that they had no part in creating, a mess that nobody else would take responsibility for. This time, the job totally went to shit on them. Is it better that they don’t even try?
“Is it better that they don’t even try?”
In this case: Yes.
They went from a slow, localized seep to large scale, regional contamination of the water supply for a large percentage of the US population. They lied about the extent; 1 million gallons ‘corrected’ to 3 million gallons. By my math, given the 500 gallon per minute discharge rate I’ve seen reported, it’s at least 4.3 million gallons. Could be more like 5.3 to 7.3 million gallons depending on if the initial reports were just an initial surge.
Last I heard, the EPA was still claiming that alll that arsenic, lead, cadmium, and acid wouldn’t harm wildlife. Which makes one wonder why they were trying to remove the ‘harmless’ stuff in the first place, and if it would be harmless if it hadn’t been the EPA that caused it.
Mining and civil engineers are claiming that what the EPA’s crew was doing was not only stupid, but violated basic rules on what they were supposed to be doing.
You drilled a hole in the lady’s pipe. That caused some local, nontoxic, water damage. You didn’t contaminate the entire neighborhood, much less render entire towns’ water supply suspect.*
Shit happens. Knowing this, smart people try to be prepared for trouble. In fact, there are a bunch of containment options required when dealing with hazardous waste. Pros are telling me the EPA crew didn’t do them (or did them wrong).
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* I can’t wait for the chemical testing on LA’s water now.
[ Is it better that they don’t even try?]
That’s not actually the question. Any human enterprise is going to have examples of error.
The real question is, how are the perpetrators going to be treated? Like they do to people who are not a part of the agency, who also make mistakes? (And usually much, much smaller than this one.) We already know the answer to this question.
Keep in mind the perpetrators had access to taxpayer dollars to do the job right – not like some small business trying to keep its head above water.
Slightly ot, but that picture of the blazing yellow river looks like it should be a Christo project. Bet he’s pissed to have been out done.
EPA knows they won’t be held accountable so did not follow acceptable procedures. Just like the OPM, IRS, VA and state department.
Ah, the government. These are the chucklefucks who want to nationalize the insurance business and take care of our health care.
Wasn’t it also the government that held the oil industry at gunpoint and forced them to put a terrifyingly potent and toxic carcinogen called MTBE (methyl tertiary-butyl ether) into gasoline, then blame them when MTBE started showing up in the groundwater near gas stations?
Did some incredible idiot just suggest that causing a little pipe repair is somehow comparable to a MASSIVE environmental disaster? Because of intent?
Really?
WOW.
So yeah, I used to spend some time in that river. I haven’t been to DGO in close to two decades and likely as not won’t be going back despite having just entered into an escrow in Ouray County just to the North.
I’d say yeah, I’d have much rather a bunch of over educated, under brained jackasses hadn’t turned an annoyance into a total disaster that will eventually reach the water people I am related to drink.
The stupid, it literally burns.
The only thing I can reference is this:
http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2015/08/12/colorado-letter-to-the-editor-predicted-epa-spill-motive-so-epa-could-secure-superfund-status/
Note the dates. Wish I could say I was surprised… BTW – I worked for them from 1983 until 2014 including the anthrax, Katrina, and Gulf oil spill.. Does the term “chucklefuck” ring a bell? I think that is a fair description of the agency – our standing joke was the only agency that was worse than us was FEMA (whom I was detailed to after Hurricane George).