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Barrick Gold continues undergound development at Cortez Hills

by Dorothy Kosich, Mineweb.com

Life goes on at the Cortez Hills gold project as the U.S. Department of Justice decides whether it will appeal a ruling by the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals that a lower court order denying a preliminary injunction to stop the project was partially reversed.

The appeals court ordered U.S. District Court Judge Larry Hicks to consider appropriate injunctive relief, encouraging the Barrick gold project be halted until additional environmental analysis is conducted by the Bureau of Land Management in three areas: transportation and treatment of refractory ore, mine dewatering mitigation plans, and particulate emissions.

Circuit Judges Mary M. Schroeder, A. Wallace Tashima and Marsha S. Berzon ruled, "The likelihood of irreparable environmental injury without adequate study of the adverse effects and possible mitigation is high."

"The resulting hardship asserted by Cortez and the government is cast principally in economic terms of employment loss. But that may for the most part be temporary," the justices said.

"As to the public interest, Congress's determine in enacting NEPA ([National Environmental Policy Act] was that the public interest requires careful consideration of environmental impacts before major federal projects go forward. Suspending a project until that consideration has occurred this comports with the public interests," they emphasized.

Barrick has already begun production of ore from the open pit and initiated a ramp up of the underground operations in Nevada's Crescent Valley. The plaintiffs in the case include the South Fork Band Council of Western Shoshone of Nevada, the Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone Indians of Nevada, the Timbisha Shoshone, and environmental NGOs the Western Shoshone Defense Project and the Great Basin Resource Watch.

The defendants include the U.S. Department of Interior, the BLM, and the district manager for the Battle Mountain Field Office of the BLM, as well as Barrick Cortez.

The appeals court agreed with the plaintiffs that the BLM violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by failing to analyze the air quality impacts of transporting five million tons of refractory ore 70 miles from Cortez Hills to the Goldstrike facility near Elko. "BLM's failure to consider the transport and processing of five million tons of refractory ore over a ten-year period shows that it did not take the requisite ‘hard look' at the environmental impacts of the proposed project," the three judge panel ruled.

The judges also found that NEPA requires the BLM to "give some sense" of whether the drying up of 50 perennial springs and one perennial creek by the mine dewatering process could be avoided.

Meanwhile, the appeals court also decided the BLM must revise its study of the environmental consequences of Cortez Hills, using separate models for particulate matter air quality emissions.

However, the appeals court also agreed with the lower court's decision that the BLM had met the requirements of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) in the agency's analysis and consultation of the significance of the Mt. Tenabo area in their religious practices. Cortez Hills is located at the base of Mt. Tenabo.

Barrick Senior Vice President Vince Borg told Bloomberg that Barrick will cooperate with BLM to ensure an analysis is redone. The company is also reviewing its legal option including a hearing before the full 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals.