(Photo Credit: The Durango-Herald)
Several congressmen are slamming President Obama’s Justice Department after it declined to prosecute an EPA employee for potentially violating his own agency's Clean Water Act in a move that may have led to the recent massive toxin dump into Colorado’s Animas River.
Back in August of last year, a botched EPA-led cleanup of the Gold King mine in Silverton, Colo., ended with a 3 million-gallon blowout of a wastewater pond, flooding areas in southwest Colorado, New Mexico and Utah with toxic water laced with arsenic and lead.
The EPA failed to notify the affected states until nearly 24 hours after the spill, despite the fact that the EPA worker heading up the project, Hays Griswold, later said he knew about the blowout risk before the incident ever happened. Following the incident, reports were published accusing the EPA of not taking proper precautions when it breached the mine that likely would have prevented the disaster.
In its own report, the EPA’s Office of Inspector General said it found evidence that Griswold may have violated the EPA's Clean Water Act and given false statements to officials regarding the incident. But despite the report, the DOJ said it won’t bring any criminal charges against the employee – despite having gone after private sector companies for similar violations.
House Oversight Commitee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) critized the DOJ for not prosecuting the allegedly negligent EPA worker responsible for the Gold King mine spill, saying, "The Department of Justice looks like it is going easy on its colleagues in EPA."
"Its lack of action on these charges give the appearance of hypocrisy, and seem to indicate that there is one set of rules for private citizens and another for the federal government," Chaffetz said.
Chaffetz has a point, and it's a good one. On Oct. 12, the DOJ imposed a $3.5 million fine on four Texas oil and chemical companies that reportedly violated the EPA’s Clean Air Act. According to the suit, the companies broke the law by falsifying permits and failing to properly clean an oil tank, resulting in an explosion that killed one worker and released a slew of toxic chemicals into the air.
Following the suit, the EPA stated quite hypocritically that “chemicals can result in severe injuries or even death, so protecting communities from the harmful effects of hazardous chemicals is a priority for EPA.”
Except, apparently, when an EPA worker is responsible for the chemical spill.
Back in August, the DOJ went after the Harley-Davidson motorcycle company for violating the EPA’s Clean Air Act by allegedly selling bikes with “super tuners,” which the agency says cause the bikes to emit higher levels of pollution than the law allows. Although the company denied violating the law in any way, Harley-Davidson was dragged through the mud, fined a $12 million civil penalty, and forced to spend another $3 million on a project to replace residential wood-burning stoves with “cleaner-burning” appliances.
In case you're wondering what all the fuss is about, here's what the Gold King mine spill looked like: