The Perfect Response to an Orange River
People Kayak the Animas River north of Durango, Thursday, August 6th, one day after the Gold King Mine spill. Photo Jerry McBride, Durango Herald via AP
“Koyaanisqatsi” is the Native American Hopi word for life out of balance
This is the fifth in a ten part series called “Through the Lens of the Animas River” that explores the August 5, 2015 Animas River spill in southwest Colorado. Each blog in this series looks at a different aspect and deeper story behind the spill. All Embracing Change Blog is focused on change, how to create it, embrace it and in particular the relationship between paradigms of countries, cultures and collective humanity relate to the systems we build, the patterns we see and experiences we have. All of those are change points, areas we can influence change but require different approaches and time scales. Learn more about a change, paradigm shifts or play Blame It Name It Change It or sign up for the All Embracing Change Newsletter. The first blog was titled, “Who Really Turned My River Orange?” and second “How to Get Rid of the Environmental Protection Agency”, followed by “Is the Water in the Gold King Mine a Problem?” and “To Superfund or Not to Superfund Silverton.”
On August 5, 2015 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) accidentally released a spill of metals laden acidic mine water from the Gold King Mine. This turned the Animas River orange and the entire country watch this butterscotch plume travel from Silverton, Colorado through Durango, on to Aztec and Farmington, New Mexico, then Bluff, Utah and into Lake Powell. The plume also went through Southern Ute and Navajo Nation Tribal Lands. The story went viral and international. Perhaps that is because an orange river is an excellent visual story or maybe the irony that EPA caused a harmful spill and they are the agency responsible to protect us from such spills. I want to focus on response here, not communication and messaging. While that is a piece of response and important, I am talking about the response that generates what and how communication occurs.
From my perspective, the response was right on perhaps the best one could expect. What it perfect? No. Chaos is the nature of accidents, there is no order and perfection doesn’t exist. A relevant question is was it enough? Will the response satisfy everyone? No and it shouldn’t. The local and immediate response has to focus on immediate and local harm caused by the spill. Harm that can be restored I believe will. The very nature of accidents is that some things are forever changed and cannot or will not return to pre-conditions. In some cases, it maybe the Mother Nature and time provide the best restoration possible. Humans do not have a technological answer to every problem, despite what the media may lead us to think. The local and immediate response will not fix the chronic broken systems that created the legacy mine issues and long term chronic exposures in the first place. That will require a different response, one far beyond EPA’s resources and role.
This spill was an acute event like a boat flip or wrap. In a flip, it is feels like time slows down, like slow motion, almost as if you are getting a moment to catch up to what is happening and about to happen. It creates this pause in which you switch from denial to response. You start to take in all that is around you, listen, ask, gather information, as reality settles in. Throughout all of it, if you are going to survive, you are required to course correct in the moment. Perfection doesn’t exist.
It is too early to know what went wrong at the site that day to cause the spill. One EPA response is to conduct an internal audit and allow external audits. This is an accountable response. In addition, EPA froze all of their mining activities across the country. As a boater who has been in a flip, you replay the flip a thousand times in your head, desperately searching for a reason, something that could take it all back. Until you realize you can’t. It is human nature to focus on what didn’t work. Acceptance leads to an effective response, which leads to healing. The headlines of the Durango Herald three days after the spill was “EPA: We’re Sorry”, the agency accepted responsibility then and there. That acceptance allowed EPA, and others, to focus on an effective response.
The spill occurred at 10,000 feet, washed away the road to Silverton and was immediate for those in Silverton making a timely response challenging and the need for different emergency plans next time. However, the spill took 30 hours to travel through the remote canyon and make it to the north end Durango. It took even longer for the plume to reach the Southern Ute Reservation, Aztec and Farmington New Mexico, Bluff, Utah, the Navajo Nation and Lake Powell. That is a lot of time in which to react. And react the collective community did. EPA, other federal agencies such as the Park Service, Tribes, state agencies, county governments, local health departments, irrigation, sanitation and drinking water provides, academia and non-profits all kicked into gear. EPA brought in over 250 employees and that doesn’t count their contractors to address the multitude of issues. It also many individuals and entities to coordinate.
Before the plume hit north of Durango, intake structures where shut down for irrigation and drinking water and the river was closed to all recreation. The EPA arranged for air flights to follow the plume as it was impossible to drive and do so. A local 24-hour crises center was created staffed in Durango and opened in all impacted communities. This center became command central where collaboration occurred to gather data, share date, use data to make science based decisions, provide information to the public on health concerns, water supply, file damage claims, get water tested. Radio stations provided updates hourly and newspapers daily. EPA and Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment created webpages and sites to provide data and information. Water was available and delivered to those without drinking or livestock water. Live phone lines where available and public meeting were held. Governors declared states of emergency to release funds for immediate needs such as drinking water. In Durango, a local fund that was initiated during the Missionary Ridge fire, was replenished and helped those make ends meet when they were left unemployed due to the river closure during the last big rafting week before school started.
Entities within their own jurisdictions began to collect pre-plume and post plume data. On surface water, sediments, wells and water treatment and delivery systems, in irrigation ditches and in fish tissues. I am personally impressed how each entity quickly arranged to collect data within its jurisdiction and how all that information came together eventually (still is) to address immediate concerns, such as opening ditches, drinking water supplies and recreation. Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW’s) first response was to ensure hatchery fish were safe (hatchery water source is spring versus surface water). Next we placed sentinel fish cages with rainbow trout fry in the river for 96 hours beyond the duration of the plume. Only one fish died not due to river conditions. We collected wild fish for tissues analyses and are conducting fish population surveys. CPW’s volunteer monitoring program has been sampling the Animas River for 15 years from Silverton to the state line. Their data has been used to demonstrate improved conditions on the Animas River at Baker’s Bridge (photo) and will be part of long term monitoring. Mountain Studies Institute did macroinvertebrate sampling pre and post plume. Southern Ute Tribe placed continuous pH Sondes at two locations south of Durango. Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE), assisted with public health sampling of wells, drinking water, ditches, surface water and sediment. They also help coordinate meetings, staffed crises center, provide information and coordinate reopening’s. It is still not clear all the data that has been generated and what long term monitoring is necessary.
The next tier of communication brought in a Colorado’s Congressman and Senator doing their job to make sure everyone else was doing their job. The Governor came and drank out of the river to show it was safe. Gina McCarthy, administrator for EPA, came in person to confirm EPA is and will continue to take responsibility. A presidential candidate even came to declare what they would do about this situation if they were president. Attention from these figures made a difference for locals.
Orange rivers freak people out. I had a dream the night the plume came through Durango that all the harmful things in our air and food were orange so people could see, that it could be that clear. Closed rivers scare people. Telling people that many of the metals settled out to the bottom of the river so the water itself is safe makes people fear the bottom of the river and what that means in the long term. The river opened when data indicated levels of metals returned to pre-spill conditions. However, opening the river because water quality was similar to pre-spill conditions after you have spent days telling them that pre-spill conditions have had elevated metals for the past 50 years, upgraded everyone’s fears a notch or two. Messaging is messy business.
People were angry, confused and inconvenienced. Uncertainty fuels distrust. People were unaware of the source of their drinking water. Unaware that bottled water undergoes less testing than their own tap water. Data was not easy to collect, analyze and communicate. The metals of concern take time to collect and analyze. The results are hard to explain. Data must be verified, analyzed and then messaged. The longitudinal nature of river and associated dilution, settling, changes in concentrations is difficult to measure much less explain that you cannot just “say what is in the water or sediments”, as many demanded, it depends where you are and when asking. Weeding out impacts of this spill from historic spills and other mining activities, from urban impacts, grazing, non-point source and water quantity impacts in the short or long term may prove impossible. This is a taste of what is being asked of the collective response.
The most important response the EPA, CDHPE and local entities did was have community meetings. Websites and social media do not replace being in person. They held meetings before they had answers. Staff at those meetings held the space for anger, frustration, confusion, uncertainty, and fear along with providing support. That is not easy to do. And then they came back. Once data began to come in and decisions made, these entities held more meetings to answer and explain what they could not. They had experts available at tables to answer specific questions. They explained decisions to open ditches, drinking water sources and recreation. The allowed people to disagree with decisions. This spill happened on a scale where this was possible and staff from these agencies, federal, state and local came together and made it happen. And it made a difference. Perhaps because there was no manual how to respond, the best response was to listen and respond accordingly. Plans can keep you from listening.
I am amazed at what was accomplished during the 14 days after the spill, it has been the kind of response that does go viral. Primary ditches were open 9 days after the spill, secondary ditches 11 to-13 days after. The river to recreation opened 10 days after. This is not the first spill the Animas has experienced but I hope it is the last, read about those High Country News. I hope this never happens again to anyone, but if it does I am not sure any entity could beat the response. I look forward to participating in monitoring and restoring long term impacts, leveraging momentum to approve a Good Samaritan legislation and an update of the General Mining Law of 1872 as well as discussion about Superfund in Silverton. I know this, that if Superfund cleans up Silverton, Earthwork estimates there are 500,000 abandoned mines across the country requiring about 50 billion dollars. And this doesn’t address the externalized devastation to rivers in other countries related to consumption in America or changes we can make now to reduce equivalent disasters related to climate change. To address real change we need to change our paradigm so that systems we build, legal and otherwise, ensure resources and quality of life for the next seven generations of all peoples. We can thank our Native American Tribes for reminding us of this.
Communication is usually a key area. While communication is never perfect, disasters remove jurisdictional boundaries and create communication that usually doesn’t occur and show where communication links were not working and need to be fixed. There is never one message because that depends on your question and area of concern. Also, the answers change with time and so does what needs to be messaged. There is also the messaging during the acute crises and messaging about recovery and long term change, different messages. Finally, there are four types of people on the receiving end of message, all real, all valid but nevertheless impact how messaging is received. Group one are those who have resources and capacity to understand the complexity and information being messaged. Group two are those who do not, but genuinely want to know, are open to listening, want the truth, realize “peace of mind” is a different baseline now and are ready to be part of a solution. The third group are those that need to know and don’t know they need to know. And the fourth group are those that have no intention of listening regardless of what is presented when, they use information exchanges solely to be heard, to get their agenda across, to maintain division and position and are not really looking for a solution. Communication is key for building trust and moving from post traumatic stress to post traumatic growth. Communication requires both messaging and listening.
Part 6 of the “Through the Lens of the Animas River” blog series that explores the August 5, 2015 Animas River spill in southwest Colorado, is titled, “Hello Durango, where have you been?”
“We cannot be selfish or timid if we hope to have a decent world for our children and grandchildren.” Jimmy Carter.