Court backs broad federal lands access around mine projects

By Hannah Northey | 06/26/2024 01:16 PM EDT

The Bureau of Land Management had declined to limit the number of 5-acre mill sites a company can acquire around a single mine claim.

A gavel.

A new federal court ruling centers around the intent of an 1872 mining law. Beth Cortez-Neaval

A federal appeals court on Tuesday handed the mining sector a major win — upholding a federal rule that allows companies to potentially claim large swaths of land around mining sites for dumping waste, processing facilities and other structures to support extraction of raw materials.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a split 2-1 decision sided with a lower court in finding that a final rule the Bureau of Land Management issued in 2003 does not limit the number of 5-acre mill sites a company can acquire around a single mine claim, which covers 20 acres.

In doing so, the judges sided with the federal government and the mining sector, while dismissing a lawsuit that environmental groups, including Earthworks, Great Basin Resource Watch and the Western Shoshone Defense Project, filed in 2009 to challenge the rule. In 2022, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras, an Obama appointee, denied the groups’ request for summary judgment, a decision they later appealed.

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Earthworks and other groups have consistently argued that the 1872 Mining Law — the basis of the Interior Department rule — clearly limits the footprint of mill sites.

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