Communicating Science about the Gold King Mine Spill and Water
Quality in the Animas River
How have geological, biological and human factors created and exacerbated acid mine
drainage and water quality issues in the Animas River?
What ecological and human health threats might be associated with the Gold King Mine
spill: initially, currently and in the future?
What actions can be taken to improve the water quality in Cement Creek and the
Animas River watershed?
What is the role of science in making policy decisions?
drainage and water quality issues in the Animas River?
What ecological and human health threats might be associated with the Gold King Mine
spill: initially, currently and in the future?
What actions can be taken to improve the water quality in Cement Creek and the
Animas River watershed?
What is the role of science in making policy decisions?
Reflection
- I think that there are not a lot of health risks for people after the Gold King mine spill. The acidity and metal concentration levels never passed our surface water screening limit. This means that we could always swim in the river, but not necessarily drink out of it. As for ecological damage, there is not much that stands out with this spill. Research ended up concluding that the metals are not particularly dangerous for the fish in our river given the doses. Also, this spill was fairly insignificant in scope of how much we pollute this river every day. It makes sense that there is not that much of an environmental blowback. The spill virtually had no long term effects.
- For us to clean our river ultimately, it will take a serious amount of superfunding. But for now, we are able to help neutralize the river’s acidity by adding lime to it. This makes the water more acidic and less basic. It also leaves the metals no place to go and they get deposited out of the water. Also, we are cleaning the water using drainage pools. The idea behind these pools is that if we give the metals a long time to sink towards the bottom of the stream as they do in the river, then we can collect and take out the metals.
- I think that scientists have a huge obligation to show the public data in and understandable way. One reason scientists do what they do is to make advancements in our society. Be it an invention, a scientific law, a prediction, or an observation, it deserves to be shared with public. Especially when talking about a problem as demanding as pollution, you have to realize how impactful the decisions we make as a race are. If scientists were to find that global warming would make us lose 10 miles of coastline in 50 years, then they would have a moral obligation to tell us, just like we would have a moral obligation to make changes. The only problem with that, is that it leaves it up to the scientists to decide what is safe and deserves attention and what doesn't. I believe that these are decisions that we need to make together, and that is why scientists need to clearly convey all data in an objective way.
- My perception of the way collecting scientific knowledge, and how the process works specifically has changed a lot this year. At first, I viewed the process as very scripted and basic. I knew that you could be creative in what results you look for, but did not credit the process itself for being creative. Then, mostly after the plasma lab, I realize how wrong I was. Just finding out that we could read spectroscopy lines 3 different ways with our own capabilities, I realized how many different ways you can carry out an experiment. I have also noticed that it is much harder to answer overlying questions than I thought. For example, earlier this year I wanted to know if our river was safe. The problem is, that is a very open-ended question in the realm of science. For us to answer this, we could use the river’s data right now. We could use it from 50 years ago. We could try to predict how long it will be safe for. We could ask if it is safe for all rivers to be like this. My point is that much like questions in Humanities, scientific questions are rarely yes or no and I was unaware of that.
This graph shows the ph levels taken from Bodo Park in the Animas River from 1990-1995. The levels never drop to be acidic yet have a very wide range of values. With the highest basicity in this time span being about 8.3, and the lowest being 7.4, you can tell how much fluctuation is involved in our river’s acidity. The reason that our water is basic instead of acidic is because most metal oxides are basic and we have let them leak into our water supply. Things that can drastically move the basicity include mine spills, daily pollution, storms or extreme weather, and the cleaning up of mines.
This graph’s data was also pulled from Bodo Park but covers the time span of 1996-2000. We see very similar results in this graph but our basicity minimum has raised to a 7.6. The maximum remains close to where it was in the last graph yet the overall line seems to stay above 8 in this graph while in the last one it was mostly below.
This graph shows the amount of Iron in the Animas River over a 5 year time span. The unit for measuring the amount of Iron is ug/L. This unit translates to microgram per liter. Another way of expressing this unit is in ppb (parts per billion) where if you have 5 ppb of Iron, then you have 5 parts Iron for every billion parts of the substance you are testing.
This graph explains in ppb how much Iron our river has i=had from 2001-2005. The EPA secondary water drinking standards for Iron are .3 mg/L. This means that for us to be able to drink the water, we need to have less than 300 ppb of Iron in it. This graph has one point on it where we would have been able to drink the water, near January of 2002. Besides that, this graph conveys only undrinkable water.