Utah's suit over mine spill transferred to New Mexico court

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A panel of federal judges says Utah's lawsuit over a mine waste spill will be transferred from a Salt Lake City court to one in New Mexico, where three similar suits were filed. The ruling Wednesday by the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation means the suits filed against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and others will be heard in federal court in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The lawsuits seek unspecified damages from the EPA, government contractors and a mining company over a 2015 spill at the Gold King Mine in Colorado. An EPA-supervised contractor crew inadvertently triggered the spill, which polluted rivers in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. The other lawsuits were filed by the state of New Mexico, the Navajo Nation and seven residents of Aztec, New Mexico.