Last week, the US Supreme Court reversed the decision of a federal appeals court and gave Alaska’s Kensington gold mine the go ahead to dump up to 4.5 million tons of mining waste  into nearby Lower Slate Lake. The waste, known as tailings, is a slurry of crushed rock and water laced with copper, aluminum, lead and mercury.

According to the Anchorage Daily News, “Filling the lake with tailings would kill its resident fish — the Dolly Varden and threespine stickleback — but the lake could be restocked with fish after the mine closed, according to the Army Corps of Engineers, which approved the controversial waste disposal permit.” [Emphasis added]

The basis for the Court’s decision is  a controversial, 2004 Bush administration rule that opened the door for dumping by allowing industrial waste to be considered as “fill material,” and thus bypass clean water regulations.

Environmentalists are pressuring the Obama administration to reverse the policy, while 150 members of the House of Representatives have signed on as co-sponsors to legislation that would clarify discrepancies in federal law that made the Bush ruling possible.

From EarthJustice.org:

“If a mining company can turn Lower Slate Lake in Alaska into a lifeless waste dump, other polluters with solids in their wastewater can potentially do the same to any water body in America,” said Earthjustice president Trip Van Noppen. “The good news is that the problem is reversible. It was caused by a Bush administration rule reversing thirty years of successful regulation under the Clean Water Act. We call on President Obama to act immediately to repeal this rule and restore the original intent of the Clean Water Act.”