The EPA announced Thursday that it has begun to seek input from stakeholders regarding their draft of a plan to monitor conditions on the Animas and San Juan rivers for the next year.
The plan calls for yearlong monitoring of key metals associated with the Gold King Mine disaster — aluminum, cadmium, copper, iron, lead, manganese and zinc — to determine the long-term implications of the spill into the Animas and San Juan rivers.
The draft document proposes 23 monitoring sites on Cement Creek, the Animas River, the San Juan River, and Lake Powell. Two sites are located in Utah: one at the San Juan inlet into Lake Powell, another in Bluff. A third is located on Navajo Nation lands within Utah's borders, at the San Juan's confluence with McElmo Creek.
The EPA proposes to collect samples of water and sediment from the sample sites, as well as invertebrates and fish, according to important seasonal intervals for the next 12 months. The data will then be compared to historical records to determine whether the Gold King Mine release has degraded at each site.
If the analysis can find no change of water quality, the sampling will be discontinued. But if conditions have deteriorated, the EPA proposes to develop action plans in tandem with the appropriate local agencies.
The plan seems pretty straightforward, said Walt Baker, director of the Utah Division of Water Quality. He said he hasn't finished reviewing the draft, but did have concerns arising from an earlier conversation with the EPA about the low number of sampling sites located in Utah.
He said the DWQ would review the draft closely to determine whether it agreed that the Utah locations would suffice.
The EPA's emphasis on monitoring up river is appropriate because of the relative proximity to the spill, Baker said, but he would like to see more attention directed toward the released metals' ultimate destination, Lake Powell.
"Those metals didn't disappear," he said. "One has to realize that where these metals are ultimately going to be sequestered is Lake Powell, and that's Utah. I think some priority needs to be given to the ultimate destination of those pollutants, not just the transitory state of those pollutants."
But that's exactly why the EPA wants input from stakeholders like the Utah Department of Environmental Quality.
"We're soliciting input on whether those are the right sites to sample or whether other locations would be better," said Sandra Spence, chief of the EPA's Region 8 Water Quality Unit.
Comments from states, tribes and local communities are due to the EPA by Oct. 8. The EPA encourages residents with concerns about the monitoring plan to contact their local representatives to provide input.
Meanwhile, Baker said, the state DEQ continues to execute its own six-month plan for sampling the water, sediment and aquatic life in the San Juan and Lake Powell. That sampling would continue, he said, regardless of the EPA's independent monitoring efforts, "until that time that something changes that dissuades us from continuing."
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People kayak in the Animas River near Durango, Colo., Thursday, Aug. 6, 2015, in water colored from a mine waste spill. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said that a cleanup team was working with heavy equipment Wednesday to secure an entrance to the Gold King Mine. Workers instead released an estimated 1 million gallons of mine waste into Cement Creek, which flows into the Animas River. (Jerry McBride/The Durango Herald via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT
| AP About 1 million gallons of mine wastewater spilled into a tributary of the Animas River in San Juan County, threatening water quality and prompting warnings to agricultural and recreational
Brent Lewis | The Denver Post The Animas River runs through Durango Friday morning, yellow from mine contamination.
Ben Brown, with the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, left, collects a water sample from the San Juan River from hydrologic technician Ryan Parker, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2015, in Montezuma Creek, Utah. A spill containing lead and arsenic from the abandoned Gold King Mine in Silverton, Colo., leaked into the Animas River, which flows into the San Juan River in southern Utah, on Aug. 5. The spill was caused by a mining and safety team working for the EPA. (AP Photo/Matt York)
Navajo Nation Council Delegate Davis Filfred walks along the San Juan River, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2015, in Montezuma Creek, Utah. A spill containing lead and arsenic from the abandoned Gold King Mine in Silverton, Colo., leaked into the Animas River, which flows into the San Juan River in southern Utah, on Aug. 5. The spill was caused by a mining and safety team working for the EPA. (AP Photo/Matt York)
| Courtesy the Utah attorney general's office Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes examines a photo of Animas River days after the Gold King mine spill, when heavy metals turned the waters bright yellow.
