The Environmental Protection Agency insists it needed to take over a gold mine in Colorado. But — now that it’s caused a massive pollution spill — the agency refuses to furnish proof that it ever needed control of the mine.

Not only did the EPA coerce the mine owner to grant it access on threat of a $35,000 per day fine and then fail to take common sense precautions to check the water pressure behind the Gold King mine when it began removing debris from the portal, now the agency is hiding the data related to the before and after effects of the spill.

On Friday Breitbart News posed eight specific questions to the EPA regarding the pollutant levels and exfiltration rates at the Gold King mine and the Red and Bonita mine during the period before and after the August 5 spill into the Cement Creek and Animas River in Colorado. The agency failed to offer any response by our Monday evening story deadline.

Those questions are:

1. What was the rate of exfiltration in GPM (gallons per minute) from the Gold King portal before the spill?

2. What is it now?

3. What was the rate of exfiltration in GPM from the Red-Bonita portal before the spill ?

4. What is it now?

5. What was the PPM (parts per million) for arsenic, cadmium, lead and copper in the exfiltrating water from the Gold King portal before the spill?

6. What is it now?

7. What was the PPM for arsenic, cadmium, lead and copper in the exfiltrating water from the Red-Bonita portal before the spill?

8. What is it now?

Dave Taylor, the retired geologist who predicted the EPA project that caused the toxic spill would “fail in 7 to 120 days” tells Breitbart News EPA’s failure to provide this information is troublesome.

“These are simple questions with simple answers that they undoubtedly have at their fingertips. If not, then there is something they don’t want us to know,” Taylor tells Breitbart News in an exclusive interview.

“Forget about what happened during the spill. Comparing this before and after information will tell us EXACTLY what has occurred and what changes the spill may have caused,” Taylor says.

Dr. David Lewis, a former EPA scientist and currently the director of research for the Focus for Health Foundation, tells Breitbart News that he is finalizing plans for his independent analysis of current Animas River pollution levels available for public review by as early as next month.

Republican Presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson is scheduled to visit Durango, Colorado on Tuesday to find out more details about the toxic spill into the Animas River caused by EPA incompetence.