Congress wades into Mont. toxic mine spill

Associated Press

BILLINGS, Mont.

The focus on a toxic mine spill that fouled rivers in three Western states shifts to Congress this week as lawmakers kick off a series of hearings into how the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency accidentally unleashed the deluge of poisoned water.

Republican committee leaders in the House and Senate said EPA officials were frustrating their attempts to investigate the spill by withholding documents that could explain what went wrong when a cleanup team doing excavation work triggered the release of 3 million gallons of rust-colored sludge from the inactive Gold King Mine near Silverton, Colo.

Mining-industry critics and some Democrats have their own agenda: They want to use the Aug. 5 accident as leverage for proposals to make companies pay for the cleanup of thousands of abandoned mines across the U.S.