page_title: Animas River
section_title: 2015 contaminants spill
hierarchical_section_title: Animas River / 2015 contaminants spill
caption_attribution_description: English: The Animas River between Silverton and Durango in Colorado, USA, within 24 hours of the 2015 Gold King Mine waste water spill.
context_page_description: Animas River is a 126-mile-long river in the western United States, a tributary of the San Juan River, part of the Colorado River System.
  The Animas-La Plata Water Project was completed in 2015. The project pumps water over a low pass to fill a reservoir, Lake Nighthorse, in Ridges Basin to satisfy Southern Ute tribal water rights claims associated with the Colorado Ute Settlement Act amendments of 2000.
context_section_description: In August 2015, the La Plata County Sheriff's Office closed the river to the public after a crew working for the EPA released approximately 3 million gallons of mine waste into Cement Creek, a tributary of the Animas.  The plug was accidentally removed while investigating a leak at the abandoned Gold King Mine. The mine was last active in the 1920s, but it had been leaking toxic water at a rate of 50 to 250 gallons a minute for years. The spill contained the toxic metals arsenic, cadmium, and lead, as well as the metals aluminum and copper. There may be other toxic heavy metals in the plume.
  The spill changed the color of the river to orange, and the spill was described as "devastating" by Kim Stevens, the director of Environment Colorado, who said that businesses who rely on the river for profit might have to close down. The river's fish population might also be at risk due to the toxic waste that now runs through the river.
  In February 2016, the Associated Press reported that the spill "dumped 880,000 pounds of metals" into the Animas River, and that "most of the metals settled into the riverbed."  The metals considered are "cadmium, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, zinc, and possibly others."
caption: The Animas River between Silverton and Durango within 24 hours of the spill.
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