Wastewater From Colorado Mine Flows Toward New Mexico, Utah

An eerie yellow sludge that poured out of a shuttered gold mine and into a southwestern Colorado river was inching its way downstream toward New Mexico and Utah. Federal officials said Friday the spill contains heavy metals including lead and arsenic, but it was too early to know whether they posed a health risk. No health hazard has been detected, but the tests were still being analyzed, said Joan Card, an adviser to Environmental Protection Agency Regional Director Shaun McGrath. The spill also contained cadmium, aluminum, copper and calcium, the EPA said. The concentrations were not yet known. An EPA-supervised cleanup crew accidentally unleashed 1 million gallons of the wastewater from the Gold King Mine on Wednesday, and it flowed down Cement Creek and into the scenic Animas River, which is popular with boaters and anglers. The EPA warned people to stay out of the river and to keep domestic animals from drinking from it. Local officials declared stretches of the river off-limits in Colorado and New Mexico...more