Document Actions
Kensington Mine
Kensington Mine:
New Kensington Links:
SEACC comments to Army Corps on Paste Plan 8/3/09
What you can do NOW to restore America's clean water
Conservation Group letter to Obama 7/17/09
WATCH: Colbert Report on Kensington
Kensington Mine Supreme Court decision
Sample letters to protect America's Clean Water
Kensington Mine Supreme Court backgroud.
Dispelling myths about the Kensington Mine.
Tailings disposal options for Kensington Mine.
Owned by Coeur d’Alene Mines, the Kensington would be an underground gold mine.
SEACC and our allies are working hard to change Kensington’s plans to dump its toxic tailings into a lake above Berners Bay, an amazing natural area.
In spring of 2007, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals determined Coeur's lake dumping plan violates the Clean Water Act.
For decades, SEACC has worked to protect Berners Bay. SEACC continued this work by working with Coeur long before challenging the lake dumping plan to encourage a land disposal tailings plan.
After the 9th Circuit victory, Coeur finalized this new, "paste tailings" plan and applied for permits. Coeur withdrew its application just months before the permits were to be granted in order to gamble on its controversial lake dumping plan at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Mines have been profitable in that time without dumping waste in America's clean water, and they don't need to change the rules to allow for more profits at our clean water's expense.
On June 22, 2009 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that permits for Coeur's lake dumping plan could stand. In drafting the majority opinion for the Court, Justice Anthony Kennedy highlighted the ambiguity in the laws and regulations and deferred to agencies involved. Because a Bush Administration EPA official had changed the rules regarding what could be called fill, the Court relied on that Coeur's permits could stand.
Now, to prevent this rule change that happened without public process from allowing mines across the nation to pollute America's clean water, it is important that we tell EPA and the Obama Administration to change back the fill rule to how it was for over 30 years after passage of the Clean Water Act.
