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cadmium
Toxic Fallout Continues as Colorado Mine Spill Declared Three Times Larger Than Stated
Communities declare states of emergency over toxic wastewater flowing through Colorado and New Mexico, heading for Utah
Aug 10, 2015
The spill, which last week sent toxic waste from an abandoned mine into a Colorado waterway, released three million gallons of contaminants into the state's 126-mile Animas River—not one million, as previously announced, according to new estimates by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
On Monday, the orange-hued sludge flowed through Colorado and into the San Juan River in New Mexico. The fallout from the massive accident continued to spread, with communities declaring states of emergency and the Navajo Nation vowing to take action against the EPA, which caused the spill.
At noon on Sunday, the counties of La Plata and Durango in Colorado declared a state of emergency.
La Plata County manager Joe Kerby said in a statement: "This action has been taken due to the serious nature of the incident and to convey the grave concerns that local elected officials have to ensure that all appropriate levels of state and federal resources are brought to bear to assist our community not only in actively managing this tragic incident but also to recover from it."
As of Monday afternoon, water quality tests along the rivers were still being conducted. According to preliminary data released by the EPA on Sunday, arsenic levels in the Durango area were 300 times higher than normal at their peak, and lead levels were 3,500 times higher than normal. Copper, zinc, aluminum, and cadmium are also included in the waste.
Meanwhile, the mine continues to discharge at 500 gallons per minute. Although the EPA maintains that the waste is unlikely to have harmed wildlife in the area, local officials in affected areas have advised residents not to use the river for agricultural or recreational purposes or to allow their pets to drink the water.
The Navajo Nation Commission on Emergency Management also declared a state of emergency. During a meeting Saturday at the Shiprock Chapter House in Shiprock, New Mexico, Navajo Nation president Russell Begaye said he intends to sue the EPA for causing the spill.
"The EPA was right in the middle of the disaster, and we intend to make sure the Navajo Nation recovers every dollar it spends cleaning up this mess and every dollar it loses due to injuries to our precious Navajo natural resources," Begaye told those in attendance.
"I have instructed the Navajo Nation Department of Justice to take immediate action against the EPA to the fullest extent of the law to protect Navajo families and resources," he said. "They're not going to get away with this."
New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez visited a portion of the contaminated river in Farmington over the weekend. "The magnitude of it, you can't even describe it," she said of the scene.
Climate activists with Peaceful Uprising also staged a protest in Utah on Monday, connecting the spill to the larger issues of fossil fuel mining and the environmental harm such activities cause. Several activists blockaded a Book Cliffs tar sands mine owned by Calgary-based US Oil Sands. They say the mine operates on land that rightfully belongs to Indigenous people and risks poisoning the surrounding environment with a similar spill.
"Thousands of mines like open wounds tell the story of a century of exploitation, destruction and violence--against the people of this land and the land and water themselves," said Melanie Martin, an activist with Peaceful Uprising. "US Oil Sands continues that sick tradition by squandering precious water in a thirsty region and saddling future generations with a toxic legacy there is no way to clean up."
The orange wastewater, still flowing downriver, is heading toward Utah, where the San Juan River joins Lake Powell. In preparation, officials in the town of Montezuma Creek have shut off water pumps there and nearby Aneth, parking a 7,000-gallon potable water tanker at a Montezuma Creek fire station.
The accident occurred last Wednesday after EPA workers attempting to investigate heavy metal waste at the abandoned Gold King Mine in Colorado accidentally unleashed the toxic materials into the Cement Creek, which feeds the Animas River. As Common Dreams reported on Sunday, the cleanup of non-functioning mines in the U.S. has long been hampered by legal and financial roadblocks.
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As Colorado Spill Hits New Mexico, Alarm Sounds Over Abandoned Mines
Toxic waste spill last Wednesday continues to spread, turning attention to issue of abandoned mines in U.S.
Aug 09, 2015
Just days after workers with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) accidentally spilled a million gallons of toxic mine waste into a Colorado waterway, the free-flowing sludge that turned portions of the state's Animas River orange reached New Mexico, where health and wildlife officials say they were not alerted to any impending contamination.
As the cities of Aztec and Bloomfield scrambled to cut off the river's access to water treatment plants, they criticized the EPA for their lackluster effort in providing warnings or answers about the spill. The contaminants seeping into the river--at a rate of 548 gallons per minute--include arsenic, copper, zinc, lead, aluminum, and cadmium.
The Animas flows into the San Juan River in New Mexico, which joins the Colorado River in Utah's Lake Powell.
Workers unleashed the waste while using heavy machinery to investigate toxic materials at Colorado's non-functioning Gold King Mine. The EPA admitted that the accident was "unexpected," but it reminds us that defunct mines are still heavily contaminated throughout the West.
The Associated Presswrites:
Until the late 1970s there were no regulations on mining in most of the region, meaning anyone could dig a hole where they liked and search for gold, silver, copper or zinc. Abandoned mines fill up with groundwater and snowmelt that becomes tainted with acids and heavy metals from mining veins which can trickle into the region's waterways. Experts estimate there are 55,000 such abandoned mines from Colorado to Idaho to California, and federal and state authorities have struggled to clean them for decades. The federal government says 40 percent of the headwaters of Western waterways have been contaminated from mine runoff.
There are several factors which contribute to the abandonment of such sites. One is cost, as cleaning up toxic materials can be expensive. However, the legal liability involved is more complex. According to the Clean Water Act, anyone who "[d]ischarges a pollutant from a point source into a water of the United States" without a permit can be prosecuted for a federal crime, even if they were trying to clean up pollution. That has prevented green groups from engaging in those cleanup efforts, particularly as an ongoing push for a "Good Samaritan" exception to the law has been ignored by the federal government, AP writes.
"There's still a whole generation of abandoned mines that need to be dealt with," Steve Kandell of Trout Unlimited, one of the organizations backing the "Good Samaritan" bill, told the AP.
Yet that ongoing issue is exactly what the EPA crew had been attempting to address last week and why it won't accept help. The Denver Post reports:
Silverton and San Juan County officials have resisted efforts to launch a full-scale federal "Superfund" cleanup to address this problem due to fears of a stigma that could hurt the tourism they count on for business.
"These are historic abandoned mines that have had acid drainage for decades. That is the very reason why we were up there," EPA regional chief McGrath said. "We were trying to reach that drainage coming off the Gold King Mine. They were trying to put in a treatment system.
"We have been in conversations with the town of Silverton ... and the state of Colorado about listing this area under Superfund. And if it is listed then, of course, removal (of waste) is part of Superfund that would allow us to take action up there. ... We have not been able to move this area to a listing under the Superfund."
In the meantime, cities have closed river access to recreational and agricultural users while health and wildlife officials conduct additional tests to determine the potential impacts of the spill. Long-term exposure to arsenic and lead can be fatal to humans.
Recent heavy rains have also raised the prospect that some of the waste that washed up onshore as it flowed down the Animas last week would rinse back into the river, causing additional damage.
"It's hard to know what is going to happen as more river flows join it," EPA's on-scene coordinator Craig Myers, in Durango, told the Post. "It is diluting. (The sludge of contaminants) is going to be settling out in places."
La Plata county director of emergency management Butch Knowlton was more direct in his assessment. "The population that lives along this river is at the mercy of the EPA," he said.
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Why Do Toys Contain Toxic Cadmium?
The European Union bans cadmium, but the U.S. government does not.
Aug 05, 2013
When I went shopping for my 10-year-old brother Robert's birthday, I didn't buy anything sharp or that shot projectiles. Only later did I realize that toys that don't look dangerous can secretly harbor toxic chemicals.
Cadmium, a metal sometimes used as a cheap alternative to lead to strengthen metal alloys, can be found in some toys. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the International Agency Research on Cancer have labeled cadmium and its compounds "known human carcinogens." The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calls them "probable human carcinogens." And they are highly toxic in other ways.
Cadmium shows up frequently in children's products particularly in children's jewelry, toys with batteries and paint coatings. A 2010 investigation by the Associated Press tested more than 100 children's jewelry items from stores in Texas, New York, California and Ohio and found that some of them contained up to 90 percent cadmium. The story prompted Claire's Accessories to take charm bracelets off the shelf and Wal-Mart to withdraw jewelry branded Miley Cyrus and The Princess and the Frog. Three years ago, McDonald's voluntarily recalled 12 million Shrek drinking glasses after the Consumer Product Safety Commission said they contained cadmium.
The Washington State government's Department of Ecology publishes a list of 47 products that may contain cadmium. These include children's clothes, furniture and art supplies. The vendors include Wal-Mart, Target and the Horizon Group.
The European Union bans cadmium, but the U.S. government does not. In 2010, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) proposed a bill banning cadmium in children's jewelry, but Congress did not enact his bill. A few states have enacted cadmium bans.
The chemical is linked to many serious disorders. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ranks cadmium seventh out of 275 hazardous substances in the environment. The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry cites studies indicating younger animals are more susceptible than adults for loss of bone and bone strength. Before children are even born they can develop problems from cadmium exposure. A team of Swedish and Bangladeshi researchers found that 1,616 Bangladeshi women exposed to cadmium gave birth to girls with lower birth weights and smaller head circumferences.
Cadmium is linked to learning disabilities in children. A 2011 Harvard University study of 2,000 children concluded that those exposed to cadmium were three times more likely to have learning disabilities. Cadmium is also linked to breast cancer, lung cancer and kidney disease.
A number of health and consumer groups have petitioned the Consumer Product Safety Commission and Environmental Protection Agency to restrict the use of cadmium in children's products. Yet even after the cadmium in jewelry outbreak, the CPSC did not order mandatory recalls or warn the public of the dangers of cadmium. The most the CPSC has done to address cadmium in children's products is to recommend an acceptable daily intake level of cadmium. Last year, the EPA issued a final rule for manufacturers of cadmium to submit unpublished health and safety date on cadmium. However, less than a month later, EPA withdrew it due to a massive amount of complaints from industry.
The federal Toxic Substance Control Act of 1976 should reformed and updated to permit stronger restrictions on cadmium. The proposed Chemical Safety Improvement Act, which is backed by the chemical industry, does not mention children and other vulnerable populations and would not give EPA greater authority to act against cadmium. It would allow companies to bypass state laws and regulations, such as California's Proposition 65, which requires disclosure of chemicals that cause cancer, birth defects or reproductive harm. Cadmium is on that list.
The lack of a national standard for cadmium in products is downright frightening. We need a bill that protects children, so that kids, like my brother, can enjoy their childhood without worrying about toxic toys.
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