FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: William Perry Pendley, 303/292-2021, Ext. 30
EPA’s Attempt to Bury Its Colorado Gold Mine Disaster Is Illegal
April 26, 2017 – DENVER, CO. A western,
nonprofit, public-interest legal foundation with decades of experience
litigating regarding environmental statutes today filed a friend of the
court brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
Circuit on behalf of two national mining groups, a Colorado miner, and
his company to join in challenging designation of a Superfund site.
Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF) for its clients Frank J. Anesi,
Anesi Mining Venture, LLC, the National Mining Association (NMA), and
the American Exploration & Mining Association (AEMA) advised the
three-judge panel that the Obama administration’s Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), pursuant to the Comprehensive Environmental
Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund statute),
designated what it erroneously called the Bonita Peak Mining District
(BPMD) and 46 specific mine sites and two study areas as a vast
Superfund site in violation of federal law, its own regulations, and a
ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States. Thus, the designation
must be stricken.
“In an Orwellian twist, the EPA coined a
new term, ‘commingled release,’ to justify its listing of sites that
fail to meet the requirements of federal law and its own regulations and
to circumvent the ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States that
barred the EPA from using an ‘aggregation policy,’” said William Perry
Pendley of MSLF. “Moreover, because the EPA failed to ‘score’ 29 sites,
it has no evidence that they are actually ‘commingled.’”
On August 5, 2015, the EPA triggered a
massive release at the Gold King Mine in San Juan County, Colorado that
caused three million gallons of heavily mineralized water to be
discharged into Cement Creek, which enters the Animas River near the
Town of Silverton, Colorado. Shortly after the EPA triggered the
release, to obscure and limit its own liability, the EPA created the
BPMD—around the Gold King Mine—and made the Superfund designation. Past
EPA studies found the area did not merit inclusion on the National
Priorities List (NPL).
Sunnyside Gold Corporation, a small
corporation, owns former mining claims and other property in the Animas
River Valley, in San Juan County, Colorado. As of 1991, all mining
ceased on Sunnyside’s properties and Sunnyside immediately began
reclaiming its sites, working with the Colorado Water Quality Control
Division. In 1996, Sunnyside entered into a consent decree, reviewed by
the EPA and approved by a Colorado district court, requiring Sunnyside
to complete specific remediation actions on its sites. In 2003,
Sunnyside fulfilled its reclamation duties and the consent decree was
terminated, but Sunnyside continued voluntarily reclaiming its sites and
surrounding properties, monitored by all stakeholders, including the
WQCD, Colorado, the Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service, local
governments, and the Animas River Stakeholders Group. Colorado and
local governments opposed efforts by the EPA to add sites in the Animas
River Valley to the NPL. Silverton, which relies on tourism to support
its economy, believes tourists will avoid Silverton if nearby land were a
Superfund site. After the EPA made its designation in the Federal Register
on September 9, 2016, Sunnyside filed a petition for review on December
8, 2016, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Mountain States Legal Foundation, created
in 1977, is a nonprofit, public-interest legal foundation dedicated to
individual liberty, the right to own and use property, limited and
ethical government, and the free enterprise system. Its offices are in
suburban Denver, Colorado.
1 comment:
How about handing out two $37,500 per day fines for all the guilty EPA officials?
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