Enviros Sue U.S. Over Lax Mining Rules

by Danielle Knight

Advocacy groups argued that hard-rock mining rules drawn up last month by Interior Secretary Gale Norton violated the Federal Land Policy and Management Act's mandate to "prevent undue degradation" of public lands.

A spokesperson said the Interior Department could not comment on the matter as it involved pending litigation.

In October, Norton reversed regulations enacted last year by former President Bill Clinton's administration. These would have imposed more rigorous environmental standards on mining operations. Norton argued they were unjustifiably restrictive.

Lexi Shultz, legislative director at the Washington-based Mineral Policy Center, one of the plaintiffs in the case filed today, said the mining industry's track record demonstrates that unsupervised mining unlawfully damages public lands.

"Secretary Norton turned her back on communities and the environment when she decided to gut strong environmental mining rules," said Shultz.

The plaintiffs -- also including Great Basin Mine Watch, based in the state of Nevada and Guardians of Our Rural Environment, based in the state of Arizona -- further petitioned the court to prevent the new mining rules from taking effect while the case is being considered.

The Clinton regulations gave federal officials new authority to block mines deemed likely to cause "substantial irreparable harm" to water resources. If left in place, advocacy groups said, these rules would have protected the environment by establishing standards to protect groundwater and wildlife habitat.

Mining companies, however, have argued that the disposal of mining wastes already is strictly regulated through the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Water Act, and various state laws.

Jack Gerard, president and chief executive of the National Mining Association, said last year's rules would reduce the company's output and could mean the loss of mining jobs in rural communities.

Conservationists countered that the public favors strong environmental rules. Before Norton issued the new policy in late October, the Bureau of Land Management, a unit of the Interior Department, said it received 49,000 public comments on the new rules, 47,000 of which urged her to keep the strong mining rules.

According to the government's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the mining industry is one of the country's top watershed polluters. Hard-rock mining has contaminated 40 percent of the headwaters in the western United States, said the Mineral Policy Center. Environmentalists and officials estimate that cleaning up past mining damage would cost between $32 billion and $72 billion.

Conservationists said that if last year's rules were upheld by Norton, mines considered highly polluting would never have been allowed. They highlighted the example of the Zortman-Landusky Mine in the state of Montana.

The mine is owned by a subsidiary of Pegasus Gold Inc. Several leaks and accidental discharges have been reported since it opened operations in 1979. The EPA and two Native American tribes have sued the company for contaminating streams and groundwater with cyanide and over acid drainage problems resulting from gold extraction.

In 1996, the parties reached a $37.5 million settlement.

Conservationists said Norton's new mining rules would give a green light to a controversial gold mining proposal in Yarnell, Arizona. The mine, they argued, would relocate residents, pollute an aquifer with cyanide, and involve tearing down the side of a small mountain.

Don Newhouse, a resident of Yarnell and member of Guardians of the Rural Environment, said the mine would devastate the town.

"Hope of better protection is now being dashed by President Bush's effort to overturn the stronger new rules and replace them with the old ones," Newhouse said during a March visit to Washington.

Conservationists strongly opposed Bush's nomination of Norton in the first place. They accused her of working against environmental regulations while pushing for increased private property rights and reduced responsibilities for corporations.

As attorney general for the western state of Colorado, Norton campaigned to allow the mining, timber, and oil industries more leeway to police themselves. She supported Colorado's self-audit law, which waives penalties for polluters who turn themselves in for wrongdoing.

"The law has been a dismal failure, prompting the Environmental Protection Agency to step in," said Gene Karpinski, executive director of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, "because the state refused to assess penalties for environmental infractions." Karpinski opposed Norton's nomination.

Norton's critics disapprove of her background, saying she first gained prominence because of her work at the Mountain States Legal Foundation, a Colorado-based group whose major donors include a dozen oil companies and that takes legal action against environmental regulations.