US High Court Backs Discharge Permit For Coeur d'Alene Mines
June 22 2009 - 10:54AM
Dow Jones News
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled 6-3 that a unit of Coeur
d'Alene Mines Corp. (CDE) received a valid permit from the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers to deposit mining waste in an Alaska
lake.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, said the Army
Corps. of Engineers has the authority to issue the permit over the
Environmental Protection Agency, which had moved to deny the
company's mine discharge plan.
"We conclude that the Corps was the appropriate agency to issue
the permit and that the permit is lawful," Kennedy wrote.
The case came to the Supreme Court to clarify a division of
power between the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers in making certain
decisions regarding the Clean Water Act.
Central to the case was the question of whether the Army Corps
properly issued a permit allowing a mining company to release waste
by-products into an Alaskan lake. The Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals invalidated the permit in May 2007, citing sections of the
Clean Water Act in which the Environmental Protection Agency
broadly prohibits the release of newer pollutants.
Coeur Alaska, Inc. applied for a permit at Kensington Gold Mine,
located about 45 miles north of Juneau, Alaska. The permit, issued
by the Army Corps of Engineers in 2005, would allow the company to
release around 4.5 million tons of mine tailings, a by-product of
the gold ore milling process, into nearby Lower Slate Lake over a
period of 10 to 15 years.
The Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, the Sierra Club and
Lynn Canal Conservation sued the Corps and the Forest Service on
the grounds that the permit violated sections of the Clean Water
Act. Though one section of the act grants the Corps the authority
to issue permits for the discharge of "fill material" - a substance
that raises a body of water's elevation when added - another sets
stricter guidelines, encouraging "where practicable, a standard
permitting no discharge of pollutants."
In an associated case, the plaintiffs also sued the state of
Alaska.
The cases are Coeur Alaska Inc. v. Southeast Alaska Conservation
Council, 07-984, and Alaska v. Southeast Alaska Conservation
Council, 07-990. Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter and Ruth
Bader Ginbsurg dissented.
-By Kristina Peterson and Mark Anderson, Dow Jones Newswires; 202 862-6619; mark.anderson@dowjones.com