Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Alaska Mining

From Reuters:

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday for Coeur d'Alene Mines Corp by upholding a government permit that will allow the company's Alaska gold mine to deposit rock waste into a lake on federal land.

In a closely watched environmental case, the justices overturned a U.S. appeals court ruling that had invalidated the permit for Coeur's underground Kensington Gold Mine northwest of Juneau.

In 2005, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers granted the company's Alaska unit a permit to put 4.5 million tons of rock waste, or mine tailings, into the lake over a decade.

The Corps of Engineers, not the federal Environmental Protection Agency, has the authority to permit the slurry discharge, and the Corps acted in accordance with the law in issuing the discharge permit to Coeur, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the Supreme Court's majority opinion.

Earlier today, Governor Sarah Palin, in anticipation of the high court's decision, had tweeted:

"U.S. Supreme Court ruling comes down on Kensington Mine project today; stand by for good news on responsible development & great jobs for AK"

The case is a complicated one and deals with several issues, including whether the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit issued to Coeur was valid, and what the definition of "fill" is. Basically, the slurry that the company will pump into the lake is z mixture of water and crushed rock.

Coeur did not have many other options to dispose of the fill, as pumping it into a nearby stream or onto the area's wetlands were both obviously poor alternatives to using the lake as the repository for the material.

Environmentalists will be howling in anger over this decision. You will hear them talk of killing "all of the fish" in the lake, for example, though they have never shown that this would happen. Expect to hear them throw word "toxic" around also, even though the slurry will contain only trace elements of anything other than rock and water. The crushed rock, of course, will settle to the bottom of the lake, and shouldn't contain anything that isn't already found on the lake's floor.

Alaska has over three million lakes. The mining operation only affects one of them. In so doing, it will create jobs and pump badly needed money into the local economy.

When the governor issues a statement on the decision, it will be posted here. The full Supreme Court Decision (PDF) is here.

Update: The governor's response to the ruling, via Twitter:

Court's ruling a green light for responsible resource dvpmt. Kensington to produce up to 370 needed jobs for AKns. http://tinyurl.com/mbnd2j"

- JP