Big Win for Alaskan Salmon; Setback for Pebble Mine
News: A court ruling might protect the world's largest salmon fishery from the mining of the continent's biggest gold deposit. A ban on dumping mine waste into natural lakes and streams closes one legal loophole in favor of the fishery.
May 21, 2007
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In March, an appellate court struck down an Alaskan mine's special permit. The Kensington Mine had an exemption to the Clean Water Act, which allowed it to dump 4.5 million tons of rock waste, called tailings, into a natural lake. This exemption was part of Bush's ungreening of America. (No other president has gone after the nation's environmental laws with such fury. The laws were revised by a cadre of appointed bureaucrats with strong ties to the very industries they regulate.)
"This case is hugely important because it's the first time we're aware of that the Army Corps of Engineers used changes made by Bush Administration to justify filling a lake with gold-mine tailings," said John McManus, spokesman for EarthJustice, a public-interest law firm representing the plaintiffs in the Kensington case. "We do believe it will create a precedent that will stop the Army Corps of Engineers from allowing it in other waters."
Already, that precedent is shaping the Pebble Mine. The plan called for a two-mile long open pit, a mile and a half wide, and 1,700 feet deep, about 15 miles north of Iliamna Lake, as Kenneth Miller reported last summer. Northern Dynasty was considering dumping the tailings into a natural lake called Frying Pan Lake. Now dumping the tailings into the natural water bodies "would no longer be an option," says Joan Mulhern, legislative counsel for EarthJustice.
The potential environmental hazard of tailings is that pyrite reacts with air to produce acid. "Storing mine tailings in water takes away the possibility of acid generation to occur," said Sean Magee, spokesman for Northern Dynasty. "If you store tailings under water, there's no chance of oxidization. That's why it can be appropriate to store tailings in water bodies." He wouldn't say if the ruling had changed Northern Dynasty's plans, because there is no official proposal yet. "We don't have a proposed mine plan at all. We are at the point of doing environmental studies and geological studies to determine the extent of the mineral resource…. Our project is five, six, or seven years away from a decision point," Magee said. "We're not at a point where we can rule out anything."
Tom Waldo, an EarthJustice attorney in Alaska, said, "You should not expect Northern Dynasty to fold up and go home. They're going to find another way to dispose of their tailings. It might involve draining lakes…. Those threats to the fisheries are very much still alive after the Kensington decision."
April Rabkin is a Senior Online Fellow at Mother Jones.
