A federal judge handed the developers of an already approved gold mine a major setback this week, ruling that the Army Corps of Engineers failed to properly analyze the environmental impacts of a potential mine wastewater spill in its yearslong evaluation of the project.
Judge Sharon Gleason in the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska wrote in an order issued Monday that the corps failed to properly analyze the impacts of the potential failure of a proposed 471-foot-tall earthen dam that would hold roughly 500 million tons of toxic mine waste.
But Gleason’s order upheld that the federal agencies’ correctly incorporated the state’s health impact assessment in its final analysis, and that the Army Corps properly conducted a significant degradation analysis as required by the Clean Water Act.
It’s not clear what will happen next. Typically, a judge will send the permits back to the federal agencies for further analysis and review to address the deficiencies outlined in the order.
