The good news is that there was not a massive fish kill in the wake of the Animas River disaster, officials who caused this nightmare claim.
We don’t know if schools of trout ingested so much lead that now they’re just too dumb to die, or perhaps the fish sprouted wings, grew feet and extra eyes and simply relocated to another stream.
We don’t know much of anything about the environmental damage caused by the spill because the EPA has not been forthcoming about much of anything.
Early results showed levels of arsenic, cadmium, iron, copper and manganese were well above the state allowable limits of parts per billion.
Which is interesting because when mine spills containing the same contaminates occurred last year in Canada and Mexico, the result was fishpocalypse.
Perhaps the EPA employed some sort of secret weapon that allowed them to pollute the river environment without killing everything in is path.
Or, they’re just not being honest with us.
We suspect a cover up, of both the environmental damage, as well as the actual amount of mine waste that has spilled, and continues to pour into the Animas River.
That would explain yesterday’s clash between state and federal officials. The EPA essentially told the state to shut up about how quickly the river is expected to reboot to its pre-spill conditions.
Officials have claimed that only one dead fish was found in the river. However, the state is conducting additional testing on the fish population, and sent about 100 rainbow trout fingerlings to Denver for dissection to look for metal accumulation in tissue and organs.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife will also conduct electroshocking in the river to compare fish health to a study conducted last year.
And again, we don’t expect to hear about the results of these tests for many weeks to come — about the same time the national news media grows bored with the story.