Pollution in the Animas River after the Gold King Mine spill. Wikicommons.
As the sixth anniversary of the Gold King Mine spill approaches, the New Mexico Office of the Natural Resources Trustee is seeking proposals for restoration projects along the impacted river system in the northwest part of the state.
The office hosted a webinar on Wednesday to provide groups interested in submitting restoration projects with details about the process.
The $1 million of funding for these projects comes from a larger settlement that the state of New Mexico reached with Sunnyside Gold Corporation the owner of the Gold King Mine in January.
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On Tuesday, the United States and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) responded to requests that it should receive sanctions because of evidence the government allegedly hid relating to the 2015 Gold King Mine release of hazardous substances.
The first motion requesting sanctions was filed on May 4 by the Navajo Nation and New Mexico, two plaintiffs attempting to recover funds they spent in cleaning up the spill. The plaintiffs cited six sources of evidence which were purportedly concealed from the plaintiffs and the court related to documentation from two EPA employees who were on-scene coordinators, Hays Griswold and Steve Way.
Sunnyside Gold Corporation (SGC), a company involved as a defendant in the District of New Mexico lawsuit regarding a hazardous substances release from
Tribes in the Mountain West reached resolutions in two long standing environmental disputes this week. The victories for the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes and the Navajo Nation could signal a shift toward accountability for corporate polluters operating on tribal lands.
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up FMC Corp. v. Shoshone-Bannock Tribes , upholding a lower court ruling in the tribes favor. The decision ended a more than 15-year-long legal battle between the Shoshone-Bannock and a chemical company that mined phosphate and manufactured fertilizer on their southeastern Idaho reservation from 1949 until the early 2000 s.
FMC Corporation is now on the hook for close to 20 million dollars in unpaid permitting fees to the tribes for hazardous waste storage. The company will also be subject to tribal regulations in its management of the waste moving forward.
NEW MEXICO ENVIRONMENT DEPARTMENT
The New Mexico Environment Department(NMED), New Mexico Attorney General’s Office, and the New Mexico Office of Natural Resources Trustee announced Wednesday an $11 million settlement associated with the 2015 Gold King Mine blowout that released tons of toxic metals and acidic waste into the Animas and San Juan Rivers. The settlement is between the State of New Mexico and defendants Sunnyside Gold Corporation, which oversaw the construction of bulkheads that caused the Gold King Mine and nearby mines to fill with acidic mine water, and its parent companies Kinross Gold Corporationand Kinross Gold U.S.A., Inc. The $11 million paid to the State of New Mexico includes $10 million for environmental response costs and lost tax revenue, as well as $1 million to the Office of the Natural Resources Trustee for injuries to New Mexico’s natural resources.