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Thursday, April 15, 2010

210,000 gallons a day of toxic mining waste into 23 acres lake in Alaska

On Monday June 24, 2009, the Supreme Court hurt the Clean Water Act in a court decision by opening the door to industrial dumping into our water. An American gold mining company was allowed to discharge 210,000 gallons a day of potentially toxic mining waste into 23 acres lake near Juneau in Alaska. 

This decision was made possible by an amendment pushed by the Bush Administration and voted on May 9, 2002. The Wetland page on EPA’s website explains “the Federal Register published a final Corps and EPA rule reconciling their previously differing Clean Water Act section 404 regulations defining the term "fill material" and amended their definition of "discharge of fill material”. While working on infrastructures such as bridges or levees, the Army Corps of engineer was the only institution using the right of discharging “fill material” in water. Bush Administration enlarged the definition to include contaminated mining in the “fill material” to serve the interest of the Mining industry. “This is the same regulatory trick the corps relies on to allow coal mining companies in Appalachia to dump the waste from mountaintop mining into the valleys below — a practice that has obliterated 1,200 miles of streams.”

NEPA (National Environmental Protection Act) requires Federal Agencies to allow public participation on their actions involving the environment. The intent is to have the public engaged into Federal decision-making process and be better informed on environmental matters. Federal agencies when conducting environmental reviews determine the level of documentation and actions needed. Therefore, they conduct an analysis to determine if an Environmental Impact Statement, (EIS) and an Environmental Assessment (EA) would be necessary. The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) defines CEs as "a category of actions which do not individually or cumulatively have a significant effect on the human environment." (40 C.F.R § 1508.4), and for that reason, do not require the preparation of an EA or an EIS. The purpose of CE is to save agency resources when certain activities have a limited environmental impact. However, CEs are also directly responsible for public involvement, if an agency agree on a CE, no environmental review or public participation are mandatory.

Federal agencies like the BLM have utilized CE beyond their intended purpose and this extensive used can have a negative environmental impact. The goal of the NEPA and the idea of the entire process are to have better qualified and improved Federal agencies. Conversely, the abuse of CE can lead to incomplete analysis and harmful activities and can affect communities, as public concerns are not including into their decisions. The GAO investigation found that BLM illegally approved some oil and gas drilling applications on public lands from 2006 to 2008”. BLM used categorical exclusions to approve more than “a quarter of applications during those years about 6,100 of 22,000 and to modify hundreds of existing permits”.  

In this case and other involving CEs, the BLM decided that environmental analysis where not necessary neither the public participation nor eventual examination of extraordinary circumstances that might have conducted to further analysis. Science and full public participation provide a foundation for equitable and sustainable development and CE an instrument to serve political and economical special interest.
  


References:
Final Revisions to the Clean Water Act Regulatory Definitions of "Fill Material" and "Discharge of Fill Material" http://www.epa.gov/owow/wetlands/guidance/fillfinal.html
NEPA, the Environmental Quality Improvement Act of 1970. Sec. 1508.4 Categorical exclusion. http://ceq.hss.doe.gov/Nepa/regs/ceq/1508.htm#1508.4
New York Time. Editorial. June 24, 2009. One More Threat to Clean Water. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/opinion/25thu2.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=Clean%20Water%20Act%20&st=cse

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