Environmental Protection Agency Accidentally Dumps Toxic Waste into a River and, Er, This Happened

I've never been great with science stuff. When I was a kid I usually got good grades in everything, but then it was time to dissect a worm and you'd think that I had been hit in the head by a coconut on Gilligan's Island. It wasn't a pretty sight. That's all to offer a giant disclaimer, so when I say the following you take it with a grain of salt: I feel like if you're the Environmental Protection Agency, and you accidentally spill one million gallons of toxic waste into a river and as a result that river turns orange, you probably screwed up pretty badly.

That's exactly what happened in Colorado to the Animas river this week after an EPA screw up. From CNN:

According to the EPA, the spill occurred when one of its teams was using heavy equipment to enter the Gold King Mine, a suspended mine near Durango. Instead of entering the mine and beginning the process of pumping and treating the contaminated water inside as planned, the team accidentally caused it to flow into the nearby Animas River. Before the spill, water carrying "metals pollution" was flowing into a holding area outside the mine.

One million gallons is a lot of gallons. Too many gallons. I know because water is usually this color:

But in this case the water is this color:

That's not good. As of now the orange colored river stretches 100 miles long. The Governors of Colorado and New Mexico have both declared states of emergency following the accident.