Federal Permit for Massive Alaska Gold Mine Fails in Court Challenge

But due to the microscopic nature of the gold at the mine site, the plaintiffs claim, Donlin will need to excavate billions of tons of waste rock and ore to procure the gold.

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster):  A federal judge on Monday ruled that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Land Management should have considered a far more catastrophic spill of chemical tailings before approving the Donlin Gold Project in Alaska.

Chief U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason agreed with a group of Native American communities, who challenged a final environmental impact statement that the two federal agencies prepared and that only looked at the possibility of a failure involving 0.5% of the total capacity of the 2,351-acre tailings storage facility to be constructed as part of the mining operation.

'The court finds that federal defendants violated [the National Environmental Policy Act] by failing to consider a larger tailings spill and by characterizing a catastrophic spill as a 'worst case' and declining to assess such a scenario on that basis,' Gleason wrote. 'A spill of more than 0.5% of the tailings volume is reasonably foreseeable because a person of ordinary prudence would take one into account in reaching a decision.'

The judge didn't agree that the final environmental impact statement fell short in evaluating the project's potential impact on human health or the impact of river barges on rainbow smelt subsistence fisheries, as the plaintiffs argued, but agreed with them that it violated the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act by not considering the possible impact of a larger tailings spill on subsistence resources.

Gleason ordered additional briefing on the kind of remedy she should enter as a result of her decision. The plaintiffs are seeking a ruling that federal agencies' approval is invalid and should be vacated.

“The judge today recognized the federal studies that underpin the mine’s permits failed to thoroughly consider the environmental and subsistence impacts of the mine,' said Maile Tavepholjalern, a lawyer with Earthjustice who represents the plaintiffs. 'Now, the federal agencies will need to conduct a more honest assessment of the mine’s impacts.”

In their 2023 complaint, the Orutsararmiut Native Council and other communities argue that the project, which they say will be the largest pure gold mine in the world, is bound to harm the Kuskokwim River on which they depend.

'The tribes, their citizens, relatives, and social relations have relied on these lands and waters since time immemorial, and continue to do so, for food, drinking water, culture, ceremony, passing on language and traditions, and other uses,' they argue. 'Mine development would significantly restrict subsistence uses and imperil ecosystems and fisheries in the Kuskokwim River and its surrounding lands and waters.'

The project will encompass about 16,300 acres, including two open pit mines, a power plant, a processing facility, among other infrastructure, and is projected to yield about 1 million ounces of gold a year over a 27-year period.

But due to the microscopic nature of the gold at the mine site, the plaintiffs claim, Donlin will need to excavate billions of tons of waste rock and ore to procure the gold. 

And as part of the mining complex, Donlin plans to construct a tailings storage facility to contain the massive quantities of slurry of water and tailings, a byproduct of the process to extract gold from that contains a slue of chemicals, including arsenic, antimony, thallium and mercury.

This storage facility will include a 471-feet high dam to contain as much as 568 million tons of the toxic slurry. It is the risk of this dam getting breached and releasing a substantial portion of the chemical tailings that is the issue the judge found the federal agencies didn't adequately analyze in their decision.

“Donlin Gold is committed to developing the Donlin Gold Project in a responsible manner that is protective of the environment and the subsistence lifestyle of the Yukon-Kuskokwim region,” said Interim General Manager Enric Fernandez. “We are currently reviewing the court’s decision and exploring our options.”

“The court upheld the agencies’ analyses on two of the three issues raised in the litigation,” Fernandez added “We believe the release scenario analyzed in the environmental impact statement was appropriate based on the specific facts of the Donlin Gold Tailings Storage Facility. We lost on a narrow issue, whereby the Alaska District Court determined that a larger tailings spill should have been considered.”

Courtesy: www.courthousenews.com

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