WASHINGTON — In an unusually explosive exchange, the chairman of the U.S. House oversight committee on Thursday accused the EPA of trying to sweep under the rug the .
U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, made the accusation during Congress’ fourth hearing into the accident, and he specifically targeted steps that he said the Environmental Protection Agency took to deal with the legal liability.
He said the EPA dispatched employees to the Navajo Nation to distribute so-called “settlement agreements” to quickly cover claims related to the Aug. 5 incident that sent pollutants through three states and blemished the San Juan River — a vital waterway for the tribe.
Days after the disaster, “we had EPA employees walking the banks of the river, not there to do a cleanup, not there to help with the cows and the cattle and other things, but they were out there handing out these waiver forms — trying to get a waiver form signed to limit the liability,” Chaffetz told EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, who testified at the hearing.
“Many of these people don’t even speak English, and yet you had employees of the federal government working for you out there trying to limit their liability. That is so fundamentally totally wrong and offensive.”
Later in the hearing, Chaffetz returned to that point and said McCarthy wasn’t being truthful about the actions of her employees and whether the liability document, known as a , constituted a “settlement agreement.”
“Do you deny your people were handing out this form?” Chaffetz asked.
Answered McCarthy: “I do deny that we were going around trying to get anybody to sign these forms. Based on the information I had, that is not correct. Did we supply forms to the Navajo Nation leadership? Absolutely.”
But she added that filling out the form only was the start of the process.
To which Chaffetz responded, hands shaking in anger: “Again, you are totally misleading, totally out of touch and totally inappropriate in this instance.”
The exchange only ended when Chaffetz ran out of time.
The next speaker gave McCarthy one last rebuttal, in which she asserted the forms in no way constituted a final agreement.
“This is an application to begin a settlement process that can be added to and amended throughout the entire process,” she said. “It was not a final document in any way.”
Navajo Nation leaders have long expressed anger and frustration about the EPA’s delay in notification of the spill, handing out the Form 95s and inability to quickly provide agricultural aid and fresh water for livestock. The tribe also said that when water was trucked in, it was tainted with oil.
As part of the hearing, Russell Begaye, president of the Navajo Nation, spoke of the same form and the pressure his people felt to receive compensation for the accident, which has marred farmland in the region.
“Our farming families were expecting to sell their harvests along a predictable timeline that was disrupted by the closing of the San Juan River to irrigation use,” he said in .
“Now that time is passing, and many of them need their anticipated harvest returns immediately to catch up on bills and to buy school clothes, among other things.
“Yet if they fill out Standard Form 95 and receive a settlement check, they may not be able to defer cashing that check while they wait for additional damages or injuries to accrue,” he added.
Last month, Begaye told his constituents not to sign the Standard Form 95, saying he feared it would waive members’ ability to file future claims. Tribal leaders were furious after they say EPA officials handed out the forms unbeknownst to them.
“The federal government is asking our people to waive their future rights because they know without the waiver, they will be paying millions to our people,” Begaye said at the time. “This is simple: the feds are protecting themselves at the expense of the Navajo people and it is outrageous.”
The tribe’s attorney general, Ethel Branch, told The Denver Post in an interview last month in Window Rock, Ariz., the Navajo capital, that she was seeking the opinion of U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch on the form.
Toward the end of her testimony on Thursday, McCarthy acknowledged the EPA had to repair its relationship with the Navajo Nation. Tribal leaders said it took the EPA almost two full days to contact the Navajo Nation after the spill, and McCarthy said she recognized the agency had work to do in earning back the tribe’s trust.
“Damage has been done beyond what happened to that river, and it’s going to take a long time to repair that,” McCarthy said. “But I’m going to do the best I can to make sure that happens.”
Epa scales down durango incident command
The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday released a draft monitoring plan in the wake of the agency’s Colorado mine spill last month, saying it’s beginning to scale down its incident command in Durango and transition to long-term operations.
The EPA says the plan, which calls for at least a year of monitoring, is out of an “abundance of caution” and noted that surface water and sediment have returned to pre-spill conditions.
“EPA has been sampling conditions since the spill to ensure the safety of residents in the watershed,” said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy.
“This monitoring plan represents the next phase of this important work, and reflects our commitment to continue working closely with state, local and tribal officials to evaluate the potential impacts of the spill.”
The agency is asking for comments on the draft proposal, which is available on their website.
