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Gold King Mine Audit Delayed By Criminal Probe

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Ethan Barton Editor in Chief
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An audit of the Gold King Mine spill was postponed until a criminal investigation is completed, a government watchdog announced Friday evening – nearly one year since the disaster.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Inspector General (IG) initiated its audit in August 2015, shortly after agency officials spilled three million gallons of toxic mine waste into a river that supplied drinking water for three states and the Navajo Nation. (RELATED: EPA’s Gold King Mine Blowout Was No Accident)

“[T]here is investigative material that we cannot reveal in any report about our program evaluation until the investigation reaches a point where the U.S. Department of Justice and the EPA’s [IG’s] Office of Investigations inform us that we may do so,” the watchdog wrote.

No one has been arrested since the EPA caused the massive spill, though one official, Steve Way, who headed the agency’s work at Gold King Mine, retired. Way, however, was on vacation when the spill occurred, leaving EPA official Hays Griswold in charge. (RELATED: Meet The Man Who Caused The EPA’s Gold King Mine Disaster)

Numerous media and congressional investigations have raised questions about facts surrounding the spill, the EPA’s response, and episodes predating the disaster, such as the agency’s use of scare tactics to coerce a nearby town into accepting a Superfund designation.

It’s likely that the EPA violated at least two federal laws for causing the spill, the Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported. (RELATED: Here’s Why EPA Could Face Criminal Charges For Gold King Mine Blowout)

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