The Environmental Protection Agency was intentionally trying to open a Colorado mine filled with millions of gallons of wastewater that triggered an environmental disaster, and Utah Rep. Rob Bishop said he has the email to prove it.

At an Interior Department Budget hearing Tuesday, Bishop and other House Republicans questioned Interior Secretary Sally Jewell about the Aug. 5 Gold King Mine blowout , according to the Denver Post. During the spill, toxic water filled with arsenic, lead and other contaminants, flowing down into New Mexico and Utah, costing the EPA millions in emergency response money.

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Cement Creek, which was flooded with millions of gallons of mining wastewater, meets with the Animas River on August 11, 2015 in Silverton, Colorado.

(Theo Stroomer/Getty Images)

Bishop, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, provided an email sent two days after the spill in which Brent Lewis, an abandoned mines expert from the Interior's Bureau of Land Management, said an EPA team used an excavator to remove the dirt and rocks that were holding the pressurized wastewater inside the mine, according to the Associated Press.

“EPA’s plan was to slowly drain and treat enough mine water in order to access the inner mine working and assess options for controlling its discharge,” Lewis said in the Aug. 7 email. “While removing a small portion of the natural plug, the material catastrophically gave way and released the mine water.”

Bishop's claim contradicts comments from the Obama administration, which previously said the work done at the mine by the cleanup crew was only preparatory, the report added.

“There was nothing unintentional about EPA’s actions with regard to breaching the mine. They fully intended to dig out the plug and breach it,” Bishop said during the hearing.

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Bishop recently wrote an article for the Washington Times that ; in the commentary, Bishop said the EPA initially was called to investigate discharge at the old mine in Sept. 2014. The next time crews went back to the Gold King Mine, the next summer, "they dug directly toward the tunnel entrance and exposed the plug that was blocking the tunnel and holding back the water," Bishop said.

Despite the accusations, Jewell has maintained that the wastewater breach was an accident, and that the work done at the mine prior to the spill , the Denver Post reported.

EPA officials declined comment on the email accusations that surfaced during the hearing, the report added.

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