Gov. Hick "Drinks" From Toxic Polluted Animas River - To Prove It's Safe

Gov. John Hickenlooper takes a big swig from a bottle full of water taken from the Animas River. What? Does the Guv think we're all idiots?

Neolib Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper must think we're all idiots as he reprised his stunt of drinking polluted water - now from the Animas River - to show it's "safe". This after 3 million gallons of toxic effluent full of cadmium, mercury,  manganese, copper, zinc, arsenic and other crap was accidentally dumped into Cement Creek (near the Animas) after an EPA contract team botched a mine investigation effort.

More than 160,000 abandoned hard rock mines litter the U.S. and some 33,000 of them have polluted nearby water sources already. There are at least 230 such mines here in Colorado, leaking thousands of gallons per minute, including the Gold King Mine near Silverton.  It is estimated that every two days an amount of  collective effluent leaks out of all CO mines that's equal  to the 3 m gallons blown out from the Gold King Mine by accident.  A congressional research report in 2006 estimated it would take from $20 billion to $54 billion to clean them all up. The money to try to clean up the Gold King Mine area - site of the recent blowout - came out of the EPA Superfund budget which is a little over $1 billion.

The operation was botched because the team mucking around had no clue of the immense mass of toxic waste behind a rock seal. So the EPA's hired contract workers (they lack the manpower in the agency itself)  chipped away too hard, whence the seal collapsed accompanied by a massive blowout  - and the rest as they say is history.

Anyway, as Hick did earlier with a glass of fracked water, he tried to pull off another stunt with cameras clicking, after two Denver media idiots double dared him to ingest the sludgy water. If he did it with the grungy fracked water why not here? Images captured him drinking from a water bottle filled with the latest muck, but no one with a respectable IQ believed he really did it without resort to some trickery.

Sure enough, a team of Denver Post reporters spied the wanky Guv dropping iodine tablets into his bottle to ostensibly protect himself from giardia and E. Coli. Of course, the real carcinogens and poisons like arsenic and mercury are another story. Hopefully, our irrepressible Guv has cancer insurance or is at least has signed onto the Colorado medical exchange.

But Hick insisted his stunt was for a good cause, as he put it:

"The point I was trying to make is that the river is back to normal"

But State Senate President Ellen Roberts suggested the Guv's stunt "sent the wrong message" while also implying he was a moron. Hickenlooper was also evidently chided by a deadly serious EPA official for suggesting the water quality was anywhere near back to normal - and also for performing the stupid PR stunt that the less intelligent might try to emulate.

In the future it would great to get more insight from the Governor, especially on Colorado's pollutants whether from old mines or fracking.

Hopefully,  he will leave his "water bottle filled with toxic sludge" monkey shines and stunts at home next time. Most of us would prefer - when these sort of events happen - serious examination of the facts as opposed to stupid PR ploys to appeal to the mentally backward.