President Clinton Acts on Yellowstone Gold Mine – Parallels with the Geocom-Kinross Gold Mine in Chile’s Futaleufu River Valley (Part 2)

In this series of articles we revisit the plans of Canadian mining conglomerate, Noranda Inc. to open a Gold Mine a few kilometers from Yellowstone National Park and how the project was halted by the Clinton Administration.

President Clinton is vacationing this year in western Wyoming, playing golf and reveling in the wonders of Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks. Last Friday, too late for the evening news shows, he took a crucial first step toward protecting Yellowstone and much of the adjacent wilderness from an environmental catastrophe.

This disaster-in-waiting is the proposed New World mine, which a Canadian conglomerate, Noranda, wants to build on land it controls in the upper reaches of Montana's Henderson Mountain, less than three miles from Yellowstone and in the watershed of the irreplaceable Clark's Fork of the Yellowstone River. Conservationists reasonably fear that the 5.5 million tons of waste the company wants to bury in an active earthquake area will ruin this sensitive watershed in America's first and most important conservation zone.

Mr. Clinton toured the mine site by helicopter and then declared a moratorium on mining activity on 4,500 acres of Federal land surrounding the site. The moratorium will not affect the actual site, to which the Canadian company has legal title, and will therefore not by itself stop the mine. But it tightens the noose around the company and signals the need for further action to block the mine if the Canadian company does not read this Presidential order as a signal of American resolve to protect its oldest national park.

The most controversial aspect of the project is a proposed tailings impoundment -- a deep reservoir the size of 70 football fields -- where the company would store acid wastes. Reputable geologists say that given the region's extreme weather and history of earthquakes, any such structure is bound to crack at some point in the future.

The reservoir would be built on 56 acres of wetlands that lie under the jurisdiction of the Army Corps of Engineers. If the Corps denies a permit to build, the company will have to look elsewhere to store its toxic wastes. Nearly every suitable alternate site is on the 4,500 acres the President has ruled off limits. The company may then be forced to truck its wastes to a site miles away -- an operation that could be prohibitively expensive.

This drama is not over. But the President has now ratcheted up the discomfort level. He deserves credit for responding to the rising outrage among the national environmental community over what the miners and some shortsighted Western politicians have tried to portray as a strictly local issue. Heretofore, Mr. Clinton has often disappointed those who thought he would bring a new level of environmental consciousness to Washington. This time he seems to have gotten the message that some places are too precious to sacrifice to a 19th-century mining law that needs to be repealed for both economic and environmental reasons.

Here is the full article originally published on Aug. 29, 1996

Stopping the Yellowstone Gold Mine – Parallels with the Geocom-Kinross Gold Mine in Chile’s Futaleufu River Valley (Part 1)

In this series of articles we revisit the plans of Canadian mining conglomerate, Noranda Inc. to open a Gold Mine a few kilometers from Yellowstone National Park and how the project was halted by the Clinton Administration.

Congress is in a mood to abandon the preservation of America's ecological heritage. It is therefore imperative that the Clinton Administration muster its resolve and its executive powers to block at least one monumental and irreversible environmental catastrophe. This disaster-in-waiting is a proposed gold mine in the upper reaches of Montana's Henderson Mountain, less than three miles from Yellowstone National Park.
The mine and its lethal wastes threaten not only the original crown jewel of the national park system, but one of the most beautiful and fragile wilderness areas in the country. So grave are those risks that this page suggested last year that Congress appropriate the necessary funds, about $35 million, to compensate Noranda Inc., the Canadian conglomerate that owns the site, for its exploratory expenses and then ask the company to go away.
That is still the best course of action for saving the great national park established by President Ulysses S. Grant. But it is unlikely that the Republican Congress will spend the necessary money or pay attention to various creative strategies offered by opponents of the mine. These include a proposal by Representative Bill Richardson, Democrat of New Mexico, to put the area off limits to mining by declaring it a national recreation area.

But the battle is far from lost. Under the 1872 Mining Law, the Federal Government cannot simply seize claims to which Noranda has already taken lawful title. It can, however, use existing statutes and its regulatory machinery to break Noranda's resolve. This is a company that persists in building a mine that few others want. Washington has enough legal authority, if the White House will wake up, to prevent the desecration of an American treasure by a foreign corporation.

Under the 1972 Clean Water Act, for example, the Environmental Protection Agency, through the Army Corps of Engineers, can prohibit development on wetlands. This is an important power because Noranda proposes to dig out 56 acres of wetlands high on the mountain. There it would build what it calls a "state of the art" impoundment site for storing acid wastes -- a deep reservoir the size of 70 football fields. Reputable geologists say that any such structure, no matter how beautifully engineered, is bound to crack at some point given the region's extreme weather and its history of earthquakes. That will send poisons directly into the surrounding watershed, which includes two of the nation's important wild rivers.
If the E.P.A. and the Corps deny Noranda the necessary permits, the company will have to look elsewhere to store its toxic material. Alternative sites could be prohibitively expensive. But even if the two agencies duck what is an obvious moral obligation, there are other weapons available.

Noranda's 200-acre mine site is in the Gallatin National Forest, which is under the jurisdiction of the Agriculture Department's Forest Service. Noranda owns most of this land but does not yet have clear title to 27 acres that sit directly above a portion of the mother lode of gold, valued by Noranda at $500 million. Environmental lawyers believe that Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, following a formal request from the Forest Service, has the power under the 1976 Land Policy and Management Act to take permanent title to these acres on behalf of the Federal Government.

If these experts are right, then the Forest Service should promptly ask Mr. Babbitt to declare these acres off limits and the Secretary should rapidly comply. Deprived of some of its potential riches, Noranda might fold its tent.

Two environmental groups -- American Rivers and Trout Unlimited -- have suggested yet another approach to those pivotal 27 acres. They argue that a close reading of the 1872 Mining Law and a handful of court cases suggest that Mr. Babbitt can deny Noranda's claim if he can show that the land has greater value in an undisturbed state than it does as a mine. They also argue that even the $500 million in estimated deposits cannot begin to compare to the ecological and recreational values of Yellowstone and its adjoining ecosystem.

Mr. Babbitt may have trouble quantifying those values, but of course American Rivers and Trout Unlimited are right. The numbers are not important. As a nation, we have to draw a line and announce that some places are simply too valuable and too sacred to our history to be put at risk.

Here is the full story originally published on March 27, 1995.