Environmental Pollution Agency Chief Gina McCarthy,

EPA Chief Gina McCarthy couldn’t be bothered to make the 55-mile trek from Durango Wednesday to tour the damage her agency caused at the Silverton mine.

She claimed that she was needed in Durango to consult with her EPA minions and Colorado officials, although it turns out that she refused to even meet with the attorneys general of Colorado, New Mexico and Utah.

She also refused to grant an audience with concerned members of the public, and instead held a ten minute press conference during which she declined to release water testing data, tell us if sediment had been tested, or explain why it took her agency 24 hours to notify downstream water users that a tidal wave of arsenic, lead, cadmium, iron, copper and manganese was headed their way.

It took McCarthy six days to speak publicly about the EPA-caused disaster, and her boss, President Obama, still refuses to address his administration’s blunder.

That vile topic of “Superfund” was not broached in Colorado. She saved that pitch for her New Mexico audience today, signaling that the entire upper Animas River watershed was in the EPA’s Superfund sights.

There’s been no update on the total spill, although if we take the EPA’s word that it was leaking 700 gallons a minute until Sunday, then continued to leak 500 gallons a minute, we’re looking at nearly seven million gallons that has splashed across 100 miles and three states. We suspect they’re not being truthful about that, either.

Coloradans were told to fill out claim reports for damages to recover losses, but McCarthy took a $50,000 check to Farmington today to help supply water for crop irrigation and livestock.

Meanwhile, Gov. Hickenlooper actually pitched in $500,000 of our tax dollars for the emergency, and that was before his idiotic press stunt, sipping Animas River water laced with iodine.

Ryan Flynn, New Mexico’s environment secretary, totally nailed Hickenlooper for the moronic move calling it a “reckless and irresponsible act by a public official.”

“He might as well stick 15 cigarettes in his mouth and light them all at the same time and take a picture about how that’s good for you.”

As of this afternoon, and more than a week after the spill, McCarthy again refused to release the water quality data to the public.

However, McCarthy said she was scheduled to brief President Obama tomorrow.

Not on the actual spill, but as to how the Indian tribes have been treated. Not very well, we suspect, as the Navajo nation has advised their members to tear up the EPA claim forms for fear it absolves the administration of complete liability.

And in the face of all this, McCarthy insisted today that her agency was being held to the exact same standards of any private company charged with polluting two rivers. And possibly a lake. In three states.

It would be laughable, if it all weren’t so tragic.