On August 5, a crew from the Environmental Protection Agency caused a spill of 3 million gallons of water laden with mercury, arsenic, and other toxic metals from the Gold King mine into a river that supplies drinking water for three states.
Initially, EPA promised that they'd be held accountable for the mess in the same manner that would apply to a private party found responsible for a similar disaster. Believe it or not, they lied. They now claim that the mine did it all by itself; they were just innocent bystanders who happened to be around at the time.
Indeed, the government prosecuted an employee of the Pacific Arctic Railway and Navigation Company, for conduct so similar to the EPA’s that one can simply switch out the nouns in the prosecutor’s closing argument that proved successful in that case. By contrast, EPA argues that their contamination resulted from an Act of God, and therefore was not their fault.
Apparently, that excuse applies to government employees but not to private citizens.
