The EPA threw the Colorado Department of Natural Resources under the bus when the feds claimed that state officials endorsed the wayward plan that ignited the Gold King mine spill.
The state experts discussed the EPA plan for the Gold King Mine with the chief EPA official on scene “and were in agreement to proceed,” the Bureau of Reclamation report said.
But the AP now says in an exclusive report that the state claims it had nadda to do with that plan.
Mike King, director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources said in a letter to the EPA that state officials were only at the mine site the day of the spill “because an EPA official at the scene wanted to talk to them about future work there, not the work going on that day.”
The AP says King’s letter has lawmakers in Washington questioning the accuracy of the federal government’s investigation into the incident.
King’s letter is a blow to the EPA’s contention that outside technical experts supported its plan to push a drainage pipe through debris covering the entrance to the Gold King Mine in southwestern Colorado on Aug. 5.
The extensive AP report is a fascinating story, readers should check it out on the U.S. News and World Report website, all 653 words of it.
Don’t bother reading it on the Denver Post’s site, they posted a bizarrely abridged version that only bothered to include 136 words of the story, which excludes some things we just told you about.