High court tosses NM suit against Colorado
Damages were sought for water contamination from mine spill
SANTA FE — New Mexico’s lawsuit against neighboring Colorado over water contamination caused by a massive 2015 mine spill was rejected Monday by the U.S. Supreme Court, dealing a blow to the state’s effort to recover damages.
While Colorado’s attorney general cited the ruling as proof the lawsuit should not have been filed, New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas indicated the legal fight may not be over yet.
“The Supreme Court’s ruling only limited the venue in which the state of Colorado can be sued for the harm done to New Mexico children, families and businesses,” AG’s Office spokesman James Hallinan said.
He did not specify what New Mexico’s next legal step might be.
The lawsuit, filed last year, alleged Colorado was too lax in its oversight of groundwater contaminated by decades of mining and should be held responsible for the fallout of the Gold King Mine spill.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied a motion to hear the case, though two justices indicated they would have preferred to see it move forward. The nation’s highest court did not provide a reason for its decision, but it has also opted not to intervene in other recent interstate disputes, including a 2016 lawsuit filed by Nebraska and Oklahoma against Colorado’s legal marijuana laws.
In a statement, Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman lauded the court’s ruling.
“Because it was the EPA and not Colorado that caused the Gold King mine disaster, I have said from the beginning that New Mexico should not have sued Colorado in the Supreme Court,” Coffman said. “Now that my office has won the Supreme Court case, I hope the conversation can focus on the EPA and its promise to take full responsibility for its actions.”
The August 2015 mine spill occurred when a crew hired by the federal Environmental Protection Agency accidentally breached a containment wall, releasing a yelloworange plume of waste out of the defunct Gold King Mine, north of Silverton, Colo.
The discharge eventually carried more than 888,000 pounds of heavy metals — such as lead, arsenic, copper and mercury — into New Mexico. It forced municipal and community water systems and irrigation ditches in San Juan County to stop drawing water from the Animas and San Juan rivers for more than a week after the spill and raised concerns about lasting damage to blue-ribbon trout waters.
New Mexico Environment Secretary Butch Tongate, whose agency was also driving the lawsuit, said it was “bewildering” that Colorado would not take responsibility for the incident.
“Through Colorado’s flawed actions, for more than 10 years, the impounded water table at Gold King grew to 1,000 feet prior to the blowout of the summer of 2015, which was caused by the EPA,” Tongate said Monday.
Meanwhile, another lawsuit related to the Gold King mine spill is still pending in court.
In that suit, New Mexico is seeking $130 millionplus in damages in federal court from the EPA and the owners of a mine next to the Gold King Mine that was the source of the contamination. The amount sought would include money to pay for economic losses the state attributes to the mine spill, specifically in the tourism, recreation and agriculture sectors.
New Mexico lawmakers this year authorized spending $1 million from a special state fund to pursue litigation related to the mine spill.