If youre a clean water junkie like me, this weeks response by the EPA to the mine wastewater spill into Colorados Animas River  that their own contractors inadvertently caused? is a fascinating and sad event to watch from the sidelines.

The daily updates on the EPAs website are quite good and informative? nice transparency and responsiveness by the agency so far. (I wonder if there was a pre-written Disaster Response Plan.)

Critics are legion, however, particularly on the anti-government / right-wing side.

I think this is a great example of people seeing what they want to see and how opposing camps deliver their storytelling in real time.

On one side, theres the perennially under-siege agency charged with keeping Americas waters clean ironically thrust into the role of polluter. (&But where did that pollution come from, who originally caused it, and why was EPA at the mine to begin with?) Never mind the thousand cleanups the EPA is running every day, the impact assessments theyre continually creating, the studies and grants they make? one big accident and a dramatic photo is enough to confirm in the other sides mind that the EPA can do nothing right, ever.

How big is this spill? How much is three million gallons of mine wastewater? The media led with a picture of an orange river, but that was obviously the leading edge of the plume (more photos here). Three million gallons is, if I remember correctly, about half the size of the worlds largest fish tank at the Georgia Aquarium. It aint chump change. The 9-mile Santa Barbara oil spill this past spring was about 100,000 gallons; the Exxon Valdez was 11 million gallons; Deepwater Horizon was 210 million gallons.

And we know mine wastewater is nasty stuff, heavy-metal wise. That lurid orange color doesnt help. Its a non-trivial cleanup. I heard on NPR last night that this is the second spill in the rivers history, and that the river bounced back from a similar event 35 years ago.

We're watching.