Future Implications:

Whether or not Silverton, Colorado becomes a Superfund site, the toxic water flowing
out of mines needs to cleaned and taken care of. Either way a lot of money is needed to start
cleaning up these long overdue messes. Chase Olivarius-Mcallister lays down some of the rough
numbers needed to solve this problem in his article, Silverton Flirting with Superfund?: But
the stakeholders group has no money to pay for it, and the EPA estimates it would cost between
$12 million and $17 million a year to run it- in perpetuity. (Mcallister, 3) This proposed idea
that has the right technology to clean the water is a limestone water treatment plant. There is so
much pressure to get things done now. Of course not all of the mines will be able to taken care of
right away, but many mines connect and are draining into each other until one last one is filled
up with so much pressure looking for any way to get out. If we can recognize which mines are
connected and treat those first we will be able to take care of more toxic water. A common belief
is that the people of Silverton do not want a superfund because they believe that mining will
boom again in Silverton, but manager of motel and the town and county building inspector and
code enforcement officer of Silverton, Bill Macdougall has different beliefs. He believes that,
We now have a balanced economy with both a winter tourism economy and summer tourism
economy, and I believe that we will be able to expand on both those and still accomplish a very
important task and that is to clean up the discharges of a lot of the older mines in our area.
(Macdougall) His main priority is to clean the water so tourist can still enjoy the beautiful town
of Silverton, and that if it came down to it becoming a Superfund it would not affect Silverton's
economy.
Ecological Impact:
One of the biggest concerns that came from this spill was how Silverton and the
communities downstream will be affected ecologically. Silverton was not impacted too severely
because they take in their water from Bear Creek and they are use to seeing Crement Creek run a
light orange color year round. But as the orange slug left silverton and flowed into the Animas
River, it started heading downstream towards hundreds of acres farmland and recreational play
areas. All creeks and irrigation that came from the Animas had to be shut before contaminated
waters impacted the daily lives of hundreds of people. In Durango Colorado and farther
downstream where farmers take a majority of their water from the Animas River were okay if
their wells and creeks were closed before it the sludge came. The problem was that these farmers
were left without water until the EPA was able to give them compensations. But Navajo farmers
were literally left high and dry when their compensations came oily, discolored, with a scent of
petroleum.(Miriam) Not only will the metal from the water have an impact, but now farmers who
used this oily water will be affected in ways that only time could tell. Its hard to tell what the
ecological impact will be with no deaths of test fish after the spill. Bill Macdougall gave an
optimistic look on the spill and gave an example of how it could have been worst for farmers and
the ecosystems from Silverton and down. I looked at it from this point of view, had this
happened in January, February, or March, that creek would have been frozen. That would have
gone over the banks of the creek all the way from the mine, all the way down Cement Creek
valley, all the way through our town, and all the way down till the Animas River. It would have

done a major destruction to the town of Silverton. Probably wouldnt necessarily have caused
any worse effect in Durango, arguably less cause some of the water would have been dissipated
out over our flat valley up here...It was contained to the river banks...It could have been a heck of
a lot worse had it been at a different time of year.(Macdougall)
Economic Impact:
This spill caused ecological damages, opened the eyes of many residents in Silverton and
south of Silverton, and had a pretty serious economic effects on some very specific citizens in
our community. Alex Mickel, the owner of a Mild to Wild, a rafting company in Durango
Colorado, was interviewed by NPRs Renee Montagne about how him and his business we
affected by the spill: It's been very difficult. This period that we've been closed from the spill,
we're generally taking 150 to 200 people a day down the Animas River. So that's just business
we'll never make up. Not only because of the immediate cancellations, but we're taking
cancellations for much further down the road when we know we'd be back operating, but people
don't want to get on the river. The Animas River is a huge recreational river that is used by so
many citizens and tourists because it is so beautiful as it runs through the town, full of delicious
trout to fish, farming, and is always the perfect temperature to swim in on hot summer days. On
the Navajo Nation their main water source for farming comes from the the Animas River, so this
spill caused a huge disaster for them: Thousands of acres of farmland could dry up, and
hundreds of families could see their primary source of income disappear.(Miriam) Because the
Navajo EPA had not yet deemed the river safe for crops and livestock some Navajos choose not
to wait around and let their lively hoods dry or use the petroleum smelling water, but to instead
drive a seventy mile round trip to get clean water.
Historical Context:
Though the spill of 2015 from the Gold King mine into the Animas River was
devastating, colorful, and an eye opener for people all around the world, this was not the first
spill to occur. Last year, in 2014, there actually was a spill that happened during high season and
was a brown color so no one even noticed. In 1978, up in Eureka Canyon, miners had been
digging, as miners do, and had ended up only 90 feet below Lake Emma. The miners had been
told they were a safe distance away from the lake, but the earth between the miners tunnel and
the lake was a soft pocket that was made out of glacier rock flour. On that quiet sunday, while
there were no miners in the tunnels, Lake Emmas pressure broke through the soft rock taking
tailings and different toxins down and out with it.(McElwain) Bill Macdougall lived in Silverton
when Lake Emma made her surprising exit: Not only did I live here at the time, my business
and the job that I was doing, directly involved working with the mining industries all over. I was
a petroleum hose supplier and worked with them and not only was I very knowledgable about the
spill and what had occurred and the history of it, I was involved in the reclamation efforts
involved at Lake Emma in Eureka Canyon up there. [Im] happy to say that they did a wonderful
job of taking care of that problem. There are so many problems still left to solve, but if we put
our heads together and fully acknowledge the problems that are surrounding us and impacting us,
we can create a change to make our water clean.