Gold King Mine Disaster Analysis

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Pages: 5

The mining industry has always contained many unexpected risks and hazard within it. In Northern Mexico, on August 6th, 2014, about 11 millions of wastewater contain sulfuric acid and heavy metal was released from a copper mine into the Sonora River. This disaster result in more than 20,000 lives struggling without their regular water supply, and the breaking down of agriculture activities in the area. This calamity was called “Mexico’s worst modern mining disaster”. A year later, on August 5th, 2015, at Gold King mine, located in Silverton, Colorado, during the process of cleaning up this downgraded, abandoned mine, a Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) worker triggered a huge blowout in a collapse mine entrance. This unfortunate miscalculation …show more content…
Nonetheless, the people is still hesitating in approaching the river. The travel industry in this area was shut down after the accident occurred. Animas river is great a destination for water rafting, boating, fishing and sightseeing. Although many people still come and visit, but they are always aware of the previous event.“This is one of the rivers that recently had a major EPA caused poison spill. It was bright yellow for a while but now the pollutants have sunk to the bottom. Looks pretty but beware of rafting or fishing in it.” A tourist commented after her visit, on September 5th, 2015. Not only the travel business, farmers are highly concern in using water for their cattles, crops, and plants. The broken down of agriculture activities in this area might be expected. Not only the people, this accident definitely becomes a troublesome for the EPA and the federal government. The expenditures, damages, prevent and repair cost will take up a huge amount. The American Action Forum’s director of regulatory, estimated the total cost of the spill can range from $2.7 million to $16.3 billion. He also stated that it might take months, or even years to figure out the exact full damage. The same incident can repeat within more than 20,000 other abandoned mines along the country. The EPA has been planning on cleaning up abandoned mine nationwide. Beside the fact that it is extremely hard and many problems will occur, a big amount of money will be needed for this long term project. To clean up this mining industry mess, the government predict that the budget can reach more than $50 billion. And this enormous amount comes from, no other different place, the people, in other word, taxpayers. The government has been pouring billion of dollars into a superfund for this