So, it turns out that that EPA ecological disaster hit the Navajos.

Of course it did. The EPA worries about coastal urban liberals, first and foremost. Native American tribes? Not so much – well, not until EPA incompetence turns a river a color that I normally associate with melted Velveeta. Then they kind of get on the stick. Eventually…

The spill happened Friday when a team of Environmental Protection Agency workers accidentally released 3 million gallons of wastewater containing heavy metals, including lead and arsenic, from the Gold King Mine in Silverton, Colorado, the agency said.

[snip]

Though EPA administrator Gina McCarthy said at a news conference today that the agency’s slow response was out of caution, Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye said the slow response is frustrating the Navajo people, who are “weeping every day” and in “dire need of clean water,” not only for drinking, but also to sustain their organic farms and ranches.

I feel that the ‘organic’ bit was a particularly vicious jab there, by the way.  Also: I look forward to prosecuting the entire leadership cadre of the EPA under their amended Clean Water Act rules.  …Oh, don’t worry. I can wait until 2017.

Moe Lane

11 thoughts on “So, it turns out that that EPA ecological disaster hit the Navajos.”

  1. It is so quaint to imagine that someone from the government would be prosecuted for mere utter incompetence. That sort of thing is for the subjects.

  2. *boggle*
    .
    Moe, you’re a genius. I hadn’t even thought “Clean Water Act”…
    .
    Fun thing for the First Nations – individual lawsuits against polluters are permitted under the Clean Water Act, and – because First Nations – they jump *directly* to Federal court.
    .
    I’m admittedly not up on boundaries, but .. I *think* they either jump straight to the 9th Circuit (because geography) or to the D.C. Circuit (because First Nations) … both of which are in the aforementioned white, liberal, coastal enclaves.
    .
    So ..
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    IF he wants to .. Mr. Begaye could indeed have a very interesting time come 2017.
    .
    Mew

  3. One other detail on this mess .. heard elsewhere that the EPA were prevented from declaring the Gold King site a Superfund project by “local politicians”.
    .
    Now, I’m not a lawyer, but .. I thought, once the EPA wanted to declare something a Superfund site, there was no way for a State to object .. the Federal trump was by *design*.
    .
    So .. just which “local politician” was blocking this? Mark Uterus?
    .
    Mew

  4. I went to college in Durango, Colorado. Ft. Lewis College. This is a major ecological and economical disaster for the entire area. The Animas River flows into the San Juan River, which is a major tributary of the Colorado River. This will be affecting not only Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona, but going further, the Colorado River is a source of water (and power) for California as well. The demand for water from the Colorado River is never ending, always at odds with the environmentalists.

    Congratulations, EPA, you’ve managed to do what decades of population infringement and demands have not.

    1. Careful, you’re giving the conspiracy theorists ideas. Say the Greens wanted to turn the Southwest back into inhospitable, uninhabited desert. What better way to do that than poison the human population out and let nature run it inevitable course to filter the damage for the next century or so?

  6. Make the EPA pay through the nose. Just like they’d crucify a corporation. And make it pay via current appropriations and budget — no special allocation of funds, cross-leveling, or so forth. It’ll be a lot of fun to see them on both sides of a court case.

    And I think “the Velveeta River” has a nice ring to it.

    1. The Kraft Corporation might be offended by this particular use of their Brand. 🙂

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