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EPA Reviewing New Mexico Request For Repayment After Spill

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is acknowledging the concerns of officials in New Mexico and elsewhere that spring runoff could stir up contaminants left behind by the Gold King Mine spill in southern Colorado.

EPA Regional Administrator Ron Curry wrote in a letter to the state's congressional delegation that the federal agency is providing $2 million for long-term monitoring and planning. States and tribes can apply their share to monitoring this spring.

Curry also confirmed the agency is reviewing the state's most recent request to be reimbursed $1.5 million for expenses related to the August 2015 spill.

In early March, the New Mexico congressional delegation told the EPA it had concerns over delays in compensation for expenses and damages caused by the spill, which fouled rivers in three Western states.