From Yahoo News/Associated Press:
US declines prosecution of government worker in mine spill
U.S. prosecutors have declined to pursue criminal charges against an employee of the Environmental Protection Agency over a massive mine wastewater spill that fouled rivers in three states, a federal watchdog agency said.
The EPA's Office of Inspector General disclosed Wednesday that it recently presented evidence to prosecutors that the unnamed employee may have violated the Clean Water Act and given false statements.
However, office spokesman Jeffrey Lagda said the U.S. Attorney's Office in Colorado declined to pursue a case against the employee. In lieu of prosecution, an investigative report will be sent to senior EPA management for review, Lagda said.
An EPA-led cleanup team inadvertently triggered the Aug. 5, 2015, spill while doing work at the Gold King mine near Silverton. The 3-million-gallon blowout tainted rivers in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah with an estimated 880,000 pounds of toxic heavy metals including arsenic, mercury and lead.
The spill turned rivers downstream of the site a sickly yellow color until the slug of wastewater had passed.
The Associated Press reported in the aftermath of the spill that the government officials knew of the potential for a catastrophic blowout of poisonous water from the inactive mine. Nevertheless, cleanup work was initiated with only a cursory emergency response plan in place.
Figured as much - it always happens in cases like this. The guilty party will not be named and if their identity is found out, they get fired but quietly re-hired in a different capacity often with a nice raise. Until we root this out and instill a sense of culpability, these fuckups will keep happening.
For more on this disaster as it happened, read here, here, here, here, here and here.
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