Posted on 11/26/2014 8:54:14 AM PST by jazusamo
On-again, off-again plans for the world's largest gold and copper mine could be back on again, after a federal judge in Alaska issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Environmental Protection Agency from its ongoing efforts to bury the project.
Pebble Partnership, the Canadian company behind the project, which would take place near Anchorage, claims the regulatory agency has conspired illegally with opponents of the mine to devise scientific and environmental justifications for blocking it. Salmon fishermen in Washington state and Alaska, Native American groups and environmental organizations have opposed the massive project for several years, and had appeared to have gotten it scuttled prior to Tuesday's ruling by U.S. District Judge Russel Holland, in Anchorage.
“We expect the case may take several months to complete,” Pebble Partnership CEO Tom Collier said Tuesday after the U.S. District Court ruling in Anchorage. “This means that, for the first time, EPA’s march to preemptively veto Pebble has been halted.”
Holland's ruling stops the EPA from taking action against the project until he makes a decision on Pebble’s lawsuit claiming the agency broke the law to stop the mine. Pebble Partnership's lawsuit claims the EPA secretly relied on opponents of the mine to help craft a “patently biased” environmental assessment that determined the project could be devastating for the salmon of Bristol Bay.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
No need.
A relative voiced negative opinions about mining harming fish. He got pretty quiet when I suggested he rally a group and buy out the owner.
Those deposits are crushed and soaked in cyanide to separate the valuable ore from worthless rock. That rock waste is piled in dams, one after another. Snow melt perks through, making its way to the ocean, carrying the cyanide, acid drainage and heavy metals too small to be recovered.
I recommend you read up on the Pebble Mine project and the accidents that have occurred using this technology before you blast off...
Yeah I know that about the 9th and SCOTUS - Holland started the ball rolling and I and everyone else in the lawsuit got shafted on our awards because of him.
Pebble mine is a different animal.. the ore is all surface..
cyanide is old technology... the ore can be concentrated but sent somewhere else to be processed.. at least five maybe six different metals present..
lots of current gold mines in Alaska.. little if any negative impact.. and lead mines as well...
The way I read it judge Holland was the judge in the case of Baker vs. Exxon, is that what you mean by “Holland getting the ball rolling?”
Here’s another excerpt and link from the Maryland Attorney Generals office:
“In 1994, in the case of Baker vs. Exxon, an Anchorage jury awarded $287 million for actual damages (later increased to $504 million) and $5 billion for punitive damages. Exxon appealed the ruling, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ordered the original judge to reduce the punitive damages. In December 2002, the judge announced that he had reduced the damages to $4 billion. Exxon appealed again, sending the case back to court to be considered in regard to a recent Supreme Court ruling. Punitive damages were increased to $4.5 billion, plus interest.”
http://www.oag.state.md.us/Press/2008/013008a.htm
What am I missing? Judge Holland was doing what the appeals court told him to do and then later upped the punitive damage award because of a recent SCOTUS decision.
Then later SCOTUS reduced the award in a ruling and Holland had nothing to do with that.
Shut down his entire department until the corruption is cleared.
I agree !
or just 'un-fund' them !
The original award as I remember was $16 billion plus punitive damages. We were screwed.
Don’t be too sure about the cyanide.
I’ve seen old works (the reject materials) worked over with this technique.
It’s dirt cheap and pays well.
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