A "claim" is a legally-defined and contracted area in which you extract a specific valuable mineral, and conduct associated activities. The BLM and Federal Regulations have long stipulated the "Mill Sites" (including dumps) may be included in an overall claim area, but must NOT be located on the valuable mineralized vein. The logic is simple - if you have a very valuable mineral vein, you don't allow structures or dumps on it, because such would impede future abilities to work that vein. Therefore, the Government itself has always said - build associated mills and dumps on a non-mineralized part of the claim.
Now NOTE below comment from the article
ARTICLE: The Ninth Circuit’s decision in 2022 upended long-standing precedent surrounding the 1872 Mining Law, which granted mining companies permission to use lands surrounding proposed mines for waste, even if those lands did not contain the minerals that formed the basis of their claim to the mine,
So this Court/Judge is taking 150 years of precedent, related agencies long-standing rules contained in the Federal Register, and simple logic - and turning them completely on their head, to make the entire BLM/Interior management concepts self-contradictory self-contradictory.
Its an absolutely STUPID ruling from precedent, current regulations, and mining practicality.
Part of the problem is that Eureka Moly stated they do not intend to permanently occupy the land (dump site) since their mining will end in 40 years but they presented no plan or intention of removing the dumped waste rock from BLM land. In essence insinuating the the waste rock and any of the contaminates it may include, would be BLM’s problem after 40 years.
I have worked on several mine waste dumps and they can cause big problems later on depending on the minerals contained within them. Certain minerals once exposed to air can oxidize and degrade into some pretty nasty stuff that pollutes the land and ground water. Eureka Moly seems to have no other plan for their mine waste other than to dump it on land they do not own and just leave it there.