Environmental appeal dismissed

The U.S. Forest Service has dismissed an environmental group's appeal of an agency decision to allow operators of the Greens Creek mine to expand its tailings pile for the mining operation on Admiralty Island, some 18 miles southwest of Juneau, Alaska.

Greens Creek, an underground hardrock mine that produces gold, silver, copper, lead and zinc, received final regulatory approval for a tailings expansion project on Feb. 4, more than three years after submitting its initial construction proposal to state and federal regulators.

The approved project will allow Greens Creek to lease an additional 67 acres of land for the construction project, for a total lease of 123 acres of Forest Service land adjacent to mining claims held by the company.

Part of the existing tailings disposal and the new leased land is within the 955,747-acre Admiralty Island National Monument. Now, the mine will lease from the Forest Service an additional 30 acres of Monument land, for a total of 68 acres.

Construction of the $2 million to $3 million project should start this spring, according to Bill Oelklaus, environmental manager for the Kennecott Greens Creek Mining Co., operator of the mine.

"If we have an early spring, we will probably start in April, but if we have bad weather, it might be June before we get started," he said.

Greens Creek needs a larger place to put non-mineralized rock, or tailings, which miners dig up along with ore. At current production rates, the mine will run out of space in the existing tailings disposal pile in February 2005.

The planned tailings expansion will allow the mine to operate another 20 years. Greens Creek currently employs 260 workers, and in 2003, produced 223,000 tons of mineralized concentrate, Oelklaus said.

Lengthy appeal, response

The Southeast Alaska Conservation Council appealed the Forest Service decision to allow the construction project in a 29-page document filed Dec. 29, the final day of a 45-day appeal period that followed the agency's Record of Decision and final Environmental Impact Statement issued Oct. 31.

The council's lengthy appeal asserted that the Forest Service failed to comply with the agency's mining regulations and with provisions of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, that the agency decision violated the National Environmental Policy Act and also the National Historic Preservation Act.

Each assertion contained multiple subheadings of alleged violations, said Randy Coleman, social scientist for the Forest Service who worked on the agency's 43-page response to the environmental appeal.

"It was an exhaustive logistical flow to get through the large number of assertions of violations of law," he said. "It is a very complicated set of resource regulations."

The agency used environmental data and records gathered to produce the EIS, as well as all other appeal and project planning records.

"Looking at all the documents in the planning record, it's a stack that's about three feet high," Coleman said. "Based on our exhaustive review, we found the decision did in fact comply with all the appropriate regulations."

Coleman noted that language in ANICLA, established in 1978 by a proclamation issued by then President Jimmy Carter, specifically allowed development of mining claims within Admiralty Island National Monument, provided the use not cause irreparable harm.

"We are required by law to issue the lease," he said. "It's not an issue of can we make the decision to do so, but that we had to do so."

The Forest Service's decision is the final administrative determination for the project. Following a 15-day waiting period, the agency will issue permits to Greens Creek.

The Southeast Alaska Conservation Council's mining and water quality coordinator, Cat Hall, said the group has been discussing whether to take the next step in its fight, which would be to file suit in federal court.

"At this point, we're going to review the document very carefully and decide," she said. "We have to look at realistically what we can do, given the resources we have, and what we will gain or what the consequences will be if we don't."