EPA plans to give Red Dog mine new water permit
Published Wednesday, October 14, 2009
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Stumble It!KIVALINA, Alaska - The Environmental Protection Agency says it plans to issues a new water pollution discharge permit for the Red Dog zinc and lead mine in northwest Alaska near the village of Kivalina.
It's the state's largest mine with an open pit that has been mined for 20 years. It will run out of ore in 2011 and needs the federal permit to keep operating another 20 years.
The mine operator, Teck Resources, hopes to open a new pit next year.
Environmental groups complain the new EPA permit would lower water quality standards.
The EPA is holding a public comment period that ends Nov. 9. Once the permit is issued, opponents would have a 30-day deadline to file suit against it.
The Anchorage Daily News reports closing Red Dog would mean the loss of hundreds of jobs, tax revenue that supports village schools and millions of dollars in annual royalties to Native corporations.
Ever since it opened in 1989, Red Dog has violated some of the water-quality standards. Teck has sought to get those permit conditions eased, arguing to regulators that they were too strict.
EPA regulators have said the mine's chronic water violations should end because Red Dog will be able to meet the less-stringent standards of the new permit. Federal and state regulators say the new standards will not harm aquatic life.
Teck will have to apply for other permits to discharge its waste into the ocean. Until a pipeline is built, the company has agreed to pay for water filtration in Kivalina households.
The Red Dog Mine is about 82 miles north of Kotzebue and 46 miles inland from the Chukchi Sea coast on the Middle Fork of Red Dog Creek in the DeLong Mountains of the western Brooks Range.
Red Dog is a partnership between NANA and Teck Cominco Alaska and employs about 450 people directly and 150 indirectly.
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There should never be any less quality water standards for any mine by EPA. Mining contributes to the worst toxin poisoning of water supply. The water toxins are so bad downstream from mines in W. Virginia that the well water burns holes in the citizens skin. I realize the difference between gold mining and coal mining. The water is still toxic from gold mining, otherwise it wouldn't be pumped into a pond to detoxify.
dove- Red Dog is a zinc/lead open pit mine, not gold.
the mine will provide water filtration for the local households, ok fine well and good. what kind of filtration will they be using on the waste water to be vented into the ocean? There's gotta be a way to salvage the waste minerals/chemicals leached from the mine by the water before it is returned. Those minerals are then lost to the mine and should be counted as lost revenue.
I'm all for keeping the mine open but similar to public schools, the solution to repeated score card failings of the mine's EPA requirement isn't to lower the GPA.
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