Gold King put a spotlight on mine pollution in Colorado. Ten years later, locals are still waiting for a solution.On a cloudy day in late July, ...

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Gold King put a spotlight on mine pollution in Colorado. Ten years later, locals are still waiting for a solution.On a cloudy day in late July, ...
Gold King put a spotlight on mine pollution in Colorado. Ten years later, locals are still waiting for a solution.
On a cloudy day in late July, Anthony Edwards looked out at where Cement Creek meets the Animas River in Silverton, a town in southwestern Colorado. Nearly 10 years prior, he stood in the same spot watching as millions of gallons of acid mine drainage gushed past, turning the water a sickly yellow-orange.

“We all knew that this was going to change everything,” recalled Edwards, who was San Juan County’s spokesperson during the spill.

On Aug. 5, 2015, contractors for the Environmental Protection Agency inadvertently unleashed 3 million gallons of wastewater trapped behind the collapsed entrance of Gold King mine while doing excavation work in remote San Juan County. The yellow, heavy-metal-laden water impacted communities from Colorado to Utah. It drew national and international attention, forcing the ongoing impacts of historic mine pollution into the spotlight.

At the time, people hoped the Gold King mine spill would pressure the federal government and communities to finally reckon with the legacy of mining in southwestern Colorado and its impact on water and aquatic life. The EPA quickly set up an interim treatment plant to catch contaminated water from Gold King, but other mines in the Bonita Peak Mining District are still draining right into the rivers and streams. And 10 years later, some local advocates and experts are frustrated with the slow pace of action.

“The EPA has done nothing to significantly improve water quality,” said Peter Butler, a leading expert on Animas River water quality. Even though they’ve spent somewhere near $140 million in the last decade, he added.

Acid mine drainage is a global issue. In the United States, the drainage comes out of coal and metal mines across the country. In 1994, a few years after the last gold mine in Silverton closed, the Forest Service estimated there were about 20,000 to 50,000 mines leaking onto Forest Service lands in the West.

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https://coloradosun.com/2025/08/03/gold-king-mine-spill-10-years-later-colorado-pollution/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_content=topic/environment

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