Interior Reverses (Clinton) Opinion on Mining Waste

RENO, Nev. -- The Interior Department has overturned a Clinton administration opinion that reduced the amount of land for waste from mining operations, rolling back another environmental decision made under President Bush's predecessor.

The department said its solicitor general under Clinton had misinterpreted the 1872 Mining Law by concluding that each 20-acre mining claim on federal land is limited to a single five-acre waste site.

The mining industry and the Interior Department under Secretary Gale Norton have blamed the earlier opinion for a significant drop in U.S. mineral exploration, mine development and mining jobs since 1997. Norton approved the reversal on Wednesday and the decision was released Friday.

more........

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-mining-law,0,3423137.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

I'm so addled, I can't decide!

:evilgrin:
dbt

"Oh, it's just the sound of James Watt's protege taking a meat-axe to environmental law. Either that, or an ice shelf collapsing somewhere."

"Oh, OK, cool, whatever. Say, isn't Larry King talking about Kobe tonight?"

HEY !

Anything that gets in the way of the BFEE's Money/War Machine has gotta go !

Heck with global Warming

Heck with Wildlife refuges

Heck with the dangers of Radiactive Waste Storage

So -

- Mining waste is no biggee - right?

(and it's gonna get LOT's worse I'm afraid)

(sigh)

It made the front page of the Seattle P-I this morning, above the fold:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/143533_mining11.html

<snip>
"It's pretty outrageous," said John Leshy, a mining law expert who, as head lawyer in Clinton's Interior Department, wrote the ruling that was overturned. "My (legal) opinion was out there for six years. Nobody took it to court. Why not? Because they were afraid they would lose.

"So they went to their friends in the administration and had them change it."
...
"It empowers the mining companies to open up large, open-pit mines on ore bodies that are not worth it," (David) Kliegman (of the Okanogan Highlands Alliance) said. "They can dump an unlimited amount of waste on public land and give it a higher priority than recreation, timber, grazing and clean water."

The large piles of waste rock can pollute because acid-generating materials once safely enclosed inside the earth are exposed to rain and snow runoff. That acid, in turn, can leach out toxic metals such as copper that then drain into nearby waterways.

</snip>

All I can say is that if the * administration continues to allow more and more pollution, they had better start funding Superfund again, because there will be lots more sites to clean up.

s_m

The BFEE, their predecessors (not all) know it will take
CENTURIES to make a desert out of most of the USA

Look at Iraq - mostly desert - and they survive !!

Don't need all dem Refuges and National Parks anyhoo !

We'll have all the "scenery" we'll need on our 'puters !

and Heck

- It'll be too toxic to spend too much time outside anyways !!

- See

- They KNOW what they are doing!!

there's not difference is there mr. nader?