Yep, it's the EPA's fault on this one. Hennis knew what was in there and Fearn, (a member of the Animas river stakeholders), knew what was in there.
The article's timeline states in 2002 "Gold King #7 level begins to discharge significant amounts of acid mine drainage." Significant, but manageable. A few gallons a minute can be filtered with ponds. Many of the mines have runoff like this and are managed with ponds. The Silver wing is managed like this. However, when ten times the nominal amount started draining out - even ponds the size the POW had wouldn't have handled it. 3gpm maybe, 300gpm no way, 3,000,000gpm? Looks like only the EPA can mess things up to this scale.
Never know if it had anything to do with it - but the acceleration of runoff seemed to coincide with the company's disassociation with Hennis. In a way, Hennis' refusal to turn over control of the mine to the company was a good thing - just too bad he was able to bleed off so much company cash to fund his own private dream before the company put a stop to it. That dream turned into a nightmare, but has nothing to do with CGFI, partly thanks to Guyer. Hennis is still trying to make a living off blaming others.
