EPA close to settling claims on mine spill
$1.2 billion in damages sought after toxic waste polluted rivers
WASHINGTON — Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said Monday that the federal government is close to finishing its assessment of roughly 400 claims for financial damages stemming from the 2015 Gold King Mine spill, which dumped toxic chemicals into waters in New Mexico, Colorado and Utah, and final recommendations could be ready by the end of the month.
Former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, an Obama-era appointee, announced toward the end of her tenure in 2016 that the government would not pay any damages to farmers and others harmed by the toxic spill, arguing it was not allowed under the Governmental Tort Claims Act. But after President Donald Trump
appointed Pruitt in early 2017, the former Oklahoma attorney general vowed to re-examine the issue.
“We’ve been working diligently since last summer to go through each of those (claims), and we are close to finishing,” Pruitt said in response to a question from the Journal during a meeting with a small group of reporters in his office Monday.
The August 2015 mine spill occurred when a crew hired by the EPA to mitigate leakage from an old mine site accidentally punctured a containment wall, sending a plume of toxic orange waste out of the defunct Gold King Mine, north of Silverton, Colo. The sludge flowed from the Animas River into the San Juan River, which flows into northern New Mexico and to Utah. Claims totaling more than $1.2 billion have been filed by members of the Navajo Nation and others.
“This agency contributed to a release of toxic materials into the water supply and the Animas River and then walked away,” Pruitt said Monday. “It was a de facto, universal, categorical denial of claims. The defenses that have been deployed under the Governmental Tort Claims Act to deny liability, I don’t think are there based upon the facts I’ve reviewed. I think the people of each of those respective states deserve to have their claims processed and if the (toxic) release caused harm and damages, how much? It’s fair and right for us to deal with those and make a determination.”
Pruitt noted that any claim in excess of $2,500 must be adjudicated by the Department of Justice, but claims below $2,500 can be settled directly by the EPA. He said the 400 claims range from “a couple hundred dollars to more than $10 million.”
About 400 private parties submitted requests for a total $318 million, according to EPA documents reviewed by The Associated Press. The claims cited lost wages and business income, ruined vacations, property damage, loss of property value and health problems.
“The last I heard is it’s imminent,” Pruitt said of the EPA’s settlement recommendations, although EPA officials aren’t sure when actual payments to claimants could be made. “You’ve got to determine if it’s legitimate or not and then make a decision.”
Parties who have filed lawsuits against the EPA in connection with the spill must have their claims adjudicated by the courts, not the EPA.
New Mexico sued the EPA and is seeking at least $130 million in damages.
In unrelated news, Pruitt told the Journal he would cooperate with a federal General Accountability Office inquiry into the EPA’s spending on a “privacy booth” to secure communications in his office.
On Monday, Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., wrote Pruitt asking him to comply with the inquiry, noting that the GAO sent its first request of several seeking information to the EPA on Dec. 21, 2017, but the EPA has not responded.
Under section 710 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2017, the administration can’t spend more than $5,000 to furnish, redecorate, or make improvements to the office of a presidential appointee without first notifying the House and Senate appropriations committees, according to Udall’s office. Published reports have said the booth may have cost more than $43,000.
“I am concerned that the agency may be misleading the committee and the public about the function of the privacy booth while also inappropriately classifying the expense as related to national security in order to avoid proper notification under section 710,” Udall, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, wrote to Pruitt. “The American people deserve an open and transparent budget process.”
Pruitt told the Journal his office would comply with the GAO inquiry, but he declined to discuss the matter further.
“We’ll provide whatever information is necessary, and we’ll let it speak for that when we send it,” Pruitt said. “We’ll just respond to the GAO and deal with that in due course.”