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Chance of Rain blog: Mixed message to mining: Clean up, says Obama Cabinet; Mess up, says Bush-era Supreme Court

Posted by: Maven on June 24, 2009 at 7:58 am

Journalist Emily Green has been following water issues for some time, most recently writing for the Las Vegas Sun & the Los Angeles Times. She has her own blog now, Chance of Rain, and she shares her thoughts on the recent news about the Clean Water Act & the Supreme Court decision:

IT’S AS SCREWY as it sounds.

On Monday, in a 6-3 vote, the US Supreme Court upheld the legality of dumping gold mine waste into Lower Slate Lake in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest instead of disposing of it in a special tailings pond. The next day, the Agriculture Secretary announced nearly $20m dollars of federal stimulus funds to be spent on mine waste clean-ups, including $2.8m to Alaska. Meanwhile, the Clean Water Act in any of its various guises does not apply to the Alaskan lake about to receive 4.5 million tons of highly contaminated mine tailings.

First to the Supreme Court decision:

”The ruling clears the way for as much as 4.5 million tons of mine tailings — waste left after metals are extracted from the ore — to be dumped into the lake,” reported the Associated Press.

Not all of the justices were behind it. AP reported further:

“In a dissenting opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said it is “neither necessary nor proper” to interpret the waterway protection law “as allowing mines to bypass EPA’s zero-discharge standard by classifying slurry as fill material.” She argued the lower court had been correct in concluding that the use of waters as “settling ponds for harmful mining waste” was contrary to the federal Clean Water Act.

Read more of Emily’s post at the Chance of Rain blog by clicking here.

June 24, 2009 · Filed Under Water Quality

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