The Poisoning of Northeastern Arizona

Entry #4: The Poisoning of Northeastern Arizona

image from Grand canyon tour

image by azcentral

As I drive out of the city I'm always taken back by the beauty of Northeastern Arizona as any outdoors type of person is, it's a sandbox like no other encompassing the Painted dessert, Humphrey's peak, beautiful rolling grasslands and forest, but also a natural wonder of the world the Grand Canyon.Yet this beauty for all it's worth may be tainted for the generations to come. In 2015 an abandoned mine in Colorado called the Gold King mine leaked out three million gallons of toxic waste into the Colorado river as reported by the E.P.A, a number that was three times the expected damage. The New York Times reported that "For years, the Gold King mine has leaked toxic waste at a rate of 50 to 250 gallons a minute." And rather then finding the source of the leak, the agency instead hired workers to loosely pack-in dirt and so called "material". Now because of their actions three million gallons of toxic material has contaminated the Colorado river, the artery of northern Arizona responsible for feeding many of it's rivers, wildlife, vegetation, and eventually flows into our drinking water. We may never know the true extent that the spill has done to our great state and only time will really tell; however, the Navajo Nation who calls part of our state it's home has already started to feel the repercussions of the E.P.A's actions. In response the Navajo Nation has filled a seven page (found here Navajo Nation Law Suit) law suit against the E.P.A for 160 million dollars to cover the cost of damages that the toxic material has had on one of the main sources of water for crops, and farmland that the nation relies on. Yet the E.P.A has still not responded, leaving the nation in a state of disrepair, and indeed possibly much of northern Arizona unless we as citizens of this state can make the E.P.A take responsibility for it's actions and start the process of cleaning the contaminated water as best it can, while relocating wildlife, and providing a proud Native American nation with clean water.