(US Supreme) Court OKs dumping gold mine waste in (Alaskan) lake

Commentary: Time for the federal government to withdraw the permit. (But hey, it's a remote lake. Who cares? As long as profit is made.)
NY Times article (more details): http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/06/22/22greenwire-supreme-court-backs-army-corps-mining-company-62747.html
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http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gvXu4LnR0aG1U19gJ9lrjHo7TrWAD98VP9HO0

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has upheld a federal government permit to dump waste from an Alaskan gold mine into a nearby lake, even though all its fish would be killed.

By a 6-3 vote Monday, the justices say a federal appeals court wrongly blocked the permit on environmental grounds.

Environmentalists fear that the ruling could set a precedent for how mining waste is disposed in American lakes, streams and rivers.

The Army Corps of Engineers in 2005 issued a permit for waste disposal at the proposed Kensington mine north of Juneau. Under the plan, tailings — waste left after metals are extracted from ore — would be dumped into Lower Slate Lake.

Environmentalists sued to halt the practice, saying dumping the mine tailings in the lake would kill fish. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco blocked the permit, saying the dumping is barred by stringent Environmental Protection Agency requirements under the Clean Water Act of 1972.

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from NY Times article
"A discharge of a pollutant, otherwise prohibited by firm statutory command, becomes lawful if it contains sufficient solid matter to raise the bottom of a water body, transformed into a waste disposal facility," wrote Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, joined by Justices John Paul Stevens and David Souter.
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"If a mining company can turn Lower Slate Lake in Alaska into a lifeless waste dump, other polluters with solids in their wastewater can potentially do the same to any water body in America," Earthjustice President Trip Van Noppen said.

"The good news is that the problem is reversible. It was caused by a Bush administration rule reversing 30 years of successful regulation under the Clean Water Act. We call on President Obama to act immediately to repeal this rule and restore the original intent of the Clean Water Act."

In March, Reps. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) introduced legislation to reverse the 2002 rule change that altered the meaning of "fill material" under the Clean Water Act.

against the Clean Water Act when it will kill ALL THE FISH!

The lake in question is located on a peninsula along a creek that drains into the mouth of a bay fed by four rivers and six large glaciers. The bay is important habitat for Stellar sea lions (endangered), humpback whales, and dozens of other important marine and land species. This permit doesn't simply permit them to dump into the lake, but allows them to raise an earthen dam to dramatically expand the size of the lake. We all know how reliable minim company dams can be.

A failure of this dam would send tailing-rich waters coursing down Slate Creek, where it would dump into the mouth of the bay within minutes. That kind of sudden inrush of pollutants would have a catastrophic effect on the bays habitat that would take years to recover from.

Lynn Canal is an important habitat for humpbacks, I don't really see how you could say Berner's Bay is.

More Steller sea lions are killed every year by fisheries than the entire Steller population of Berner's Bay, not that it's likely that any of them would be killed.

and why the fish would be killed? "It was described as fill material"

Excessive turbidity kills fish, they suffocate.

I just don't see how this can pass in a court of law. I'm appalled!

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/08pdf/07-984.pdf

GINSBURG, J., STEVENS and SOUTER, dissented, but the rest, including Breyer went with Corporate America.