This weekend, my family and I hiked to Six Mile Springs near my hometown in Wyoming. The springs, a natural waterfall tucked in a small mountain on the edge of town, is like a hidden oasis in an otherwise pretty barren area. Although it was very chilly and it is barely spring, we were expecting the waterfall to be already raging with the spring runoff, especially in light of the muddy trail that led us to the springs.
However, when we reached the springs, we were surprised to see that huge piles of snow and ice were all still frozen solid.
The runoff hasn't quite started up north yet, but it got me wondering whether the Gold King Mine wastewater release this fall would have any impact on Colorado's spring runoff.
Are there lasting effects of the wastewater spill that could be impacted from the spring snowmelt? I wasn't the only person wondering... The EPA is reportedly working to address the lasting effects of the spill in advance of the first snowmelt runoff following the incident.
As we previously discussed, in August of 2015, roughly 3 million gallons of mine wastewater was released from the inactive Gold King Mine in southern Colorado. In September of 2015, the EPA released information from the Animas and San Juan Rivers showing that metal concentration levels had returned to pre-event levels.
However, the contamination concerns and the monitoring of the site continue; last week, the EPA released its future monitoring plan to evaluate conditions in the Animas and San Juan Rivers and the impacts to public health and the environment. A full copy of the Final Conceptual Monitoring Plan ("Plan") can be found here.
According to the Plan, "[t]hough restoration activities and plans have been underway in the watershed, aquatic life uses in numerous segments of the watershed remain impaired by heavy metals."
Monitoring is scheduled to continue through the fall of 2016 and the EPA press release provides that under the Plan, the EPA is examining water quality, sediment quality, biological community and fish tissue at 30 locations under a variety of flow and seasonal river conditions. The sampling locations span Cement Creek, the Animas and San Juan rivers, and the upper section of the San Juan arm of Lake Powell.
The Plan is expected to "provide EPA, state, local governments and tribes with scientific data about water quality in the rivers and will help to explain the fluctuations over time and location based on seasonal factors that influence river flow, such as precipitation and snow melt."
The EPA reports that it has made $2 million in initial funding available to launch these monitoring efforts under the Plan.
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