Truck crash spills more waste from Colorado’s Gold King mine into creek

This 2015 file photo shows the Animas River shortly after the toxic spill at the Gold King Mine in Colorado, August 2015 | Photo courtesy of Riverhugger via Wikimedia Commons, St. George News

SILVERTON, Colo. (AP) — A truck hauling waste from a Colorado mine – the source of a 2015 spill that polluted rivers in three states – crashed into a creek on Monday, spilling at least some of its load into the water, authorities said.

The driver was not seriously injured, but about 9 cubic yards (7 cubic meters) of sludge spilled into the water, officials said.

In this Aug. 14, 2015, file photo, water flows through a series of sediment retention ponds built to reduce heavy metal and chemical contaminants from the Gold King Mine wastewater accident, in the spillway downstream from the mine, outside Silverton, Colo. The massive mine waste spill in southwestern Colorado contributed to water quality problems for up to nine months, the Environmental Protection Agency said Friday, Jan. 6, 2017. | Associated Press photo by Brennan Linsley, St. George News

The sludge is a byproduct of a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wastewater treatment plant cleaning up water draining from the inactive Gold King mine near Silverton in southwestern Colorado.

The agency said previously the sludge is not hazardous. An EPA spokesman didn’t immediately respond to a phone call and email after hours Monday.

Authorities said it did not appear the truck spilled any fuel.

The Gold King was the source of an August 2015 spill that released 3 million gallons (11.4 million liters) of potentially toxic wastewater, polluting rivers in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah and on Native American lands. An EPA-led contractor crew inadvertently triggered the spill while excavating at the mine entrance.

The 2015 spill sent a yellow-orange plume containing arsenic, lead and other toxic metals into waterways, putting the rivers temporarily off-limits for drinking water, farming, rafting and fishing. The EPA said the water quality quickly returned to pre-spill levels.

The EPA installed a temporary treatment plant below the Gold King two months after the spill to clean up wastewater still flowing from the mine.

The plant removes metals from the water before it enters Cement Creek. The truck that crashed Monday slid off the shoulder of a mountain road and dumped the sludge back into the same creek farther downstream.

The EPA had been storing the sludge at the treatment plant but was running out of room. Trucks began hauling it to another site this summer.

The agency designated the area a Superfund site in 2016 but hasn’t announced long-term cleanup plans.

Written by The Associated Press.

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