Backyard Problems

Pinyon Plain Uranium Mine

Ten miles south of the south rim of the Grand Canyon in the Kaibab National Forest in Arizona, the Pinyon Plain Mine—formerly known as Canyon Mine—has been permitted for uranium mining since 1984. The mine has yet to produce any actual uranium, though the U.S. Forest Service  estimates  that it has the potential to produce up to 1.6 million pounds of uranium ore. Energy Fuels Resources, the Canadian company that owns the mine, put Pinyon Plain on standby in 1992 when uranium prices fell below a level that made it profitable to continue mining. This kept the mine permitted for operation even though the Environmental Impact Statement for the site  dates back to 1986 . Crucially, the mine was already permitted when the Obama administration put in place a 20-year moratorium on new mining claims in the Grand Canyon area in 2012. Since the mine was not closed and still had an active permit, it was not affected by the moratorium. It has since  survived attempts  by Tribes and environmental organizations to force the mine to fully close, including at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals which  ruled in favor of the mine  in February 2022. 

Tribes and environmental advocates remain concerned about the risks posed by the mine. The Havasupai Tribe in particular has opposed the mine for decades. The mine occupies Havasupai traditional cultural lands and  threatens an important drinking water source  for the Tribe. These concerns are far from hypothetical. In 2016, drilling operations at the mine  pierced an aquifer  that has been  draining into the mine shaft ever since . This is a problem for several reasons. For one, in an exceptionally dry state such as Arizona, groundwater is a valuable resource that is in demand for other uses, such as agriculture, and is not renewable on timescales that are relevant to humans. Then, as the water drains into the mine shaft, it becomes contaminated with uranium and arsenic, making the water not only unusable, but toxic. In other words, draining this aquifer into the mine shaft is an enormous waste of water that Arizona can’t afford.

Finally, as the water now continually floods the mine shaft, Energy Fuels has to pump the contaminated radioactive water out and figure out  what to do with it . Attempted solutions have included putting it in evaporation ponds (where it attracts birds and other wildlife eager for a water source in the desert) and spraying it around with misters to help it evaporate more quickly (allowing radioactive contaminants to be carried to the surrounding area by wind). The company also trucked contaminated, radioactive water across Navajo Nation and Ute Mountain Ute Tribal lands to the White Mesa Mill in Utah (also owned by Energy Fuels)  without notifying  the Tribes of the risk of a spill of contaminated water on their lands. “The excess water we are managing is relatively clean, and contains only trace amounts of natural uranium,”  said  Curtis Moore, Energy Fuels’ vice president of marketing and corporate development. But  a coalition of environmental organizations  opposed to the mine  pointed out that  dissolved uranium in the water was found to be more than 300 percent above federal toxicity limits, while dissolved arsenic in the water was more than 2,800 percent above federal limits. Moore also defended the misters: “We are not blowing water into the forest,” he insisted, despite photos taken by volunteers  appearing to show  just that. 

As this was happening, Energy Fuels  was lobbying the Trump administration  to shrink the boundaries of Bears Ears National Monument so that it could access uranium deposits within the monument, spending $30,000 on  lobbyists on this issue alone  over a nine-month period in 2017. Energy Fuels also  opposed  the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument, which was designated by President Joe Biden in August 2023.

Meanwhile, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has renewed interest in uranium sourced within the U.S., and the Pinyon Plain Mine has been taking steps to resume production. In April 2022 the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ)  issued  the mine a new aquifer protection plan permit, required for any facility that plans to discharge pollutants to ensure those pollutants will not contaminate groundwater. “The aquifers are too important to continue to be contaminated and sacrificed by Energy Fuels and ADEQ,”  said  Havasupai Vice Chairman Edmond Tilousi in a letter submitted to ADEQ following the issuance of the April 2022 permit. “The associated health risks are known and documented, and these negative impacts have disproportionately affected Indigenous populations in northern Arizona, you can not simply ignore them,” the letter  states . In response, ADEQ Director Misael Cabrera  said  that “it’s not entirely clear that any response outside of denying the permit would be sufficient to the Tribe,” seeming to imply that denying the permit was not considered. Moore, with Energy Fuels,  praised  ADEQ for “their courage” in approving the permit.

In November 2022, a few months after the aquifer protection plan permit approval, Energy Fuels  announced  that it had secured a deal to finance re-starting uranium production at Pinyon Plain and  posted job listings  for personnel with experience in mining operations. Policymakers have renewed their interest in domestic uranium as well: in February 2023, the  Nuclear Fuel Security Act  was introduced in Congress with the explicit goal of increasing domestic uranium production. Cosponsors include Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming and Senator Jim Risch of Idaho,  who have received $412,166 and $131,950 , respectively, in contributions from the mining industry over the course of their careers. Energy Fuels Resources  spent $200,000 in lobbying  the federal government in 2022 alone.

The Pinyon Plain Mine shows how failure to update the General Mining Law of 1872 continues to disproportionately harm Indigenous communities. The primacy of mineral rights granted by this law continues to stymie legal challenges to this and other mines. “It’s been unfortunate to know that the law, the mining operation law from the 1880s, prevents small Indigenous communities from protecting their land,”  said  Havasupai Tribal Councilman Stuart L.T. Chavez. The situation also clearly shows the need to act quickly to protect lands and waters with permanent and durable designations. The August 2023 designation of the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni - Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument won’t stop the Pinyon Plain Mine because the mining company got there first, but it will protect against even more future mining and other harmful development. As interest increases in uranium, critical minerals, and other materials, irreplaceable landscapes and waters must be protected before it’s too late.

Gold King Mine Spill

In August 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hired a crew of contractors to clear a wall of old dirt blocking a main tunnel of the Gold King Mine, an inactive mine that was used during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to mine and transport gold and silver ore. The dirt pile, as the EPA was aware, was holding back a raging flow of contaminated water laced with heavy metals near the Animas River. Their  plan  was to install a bulkhead—essentially a plug—on the Red & Bonita Mine, which is downstream of the water flowing in the Gold King Mine. In order to do this, they attempted to install a pipe in the Gold King Mine to divert the contaminated water. But the contractors dug too far, causing a blowout that released an estimated  3 million  gallons of water riddled with heavy metals into the Animas River, down the San Juan River, and eventually into Lake Powell.

In response to the spill, canals going downstream were closed, causing  Navajo farmers’  crops to die from a lack of water. Even after the water was deemed safe to use for agriculture, farmers found their produce impossible to sell due to enduring public fears of contamination, especially after seeing photos of the sickly bright yellow color that the Animas river turned for nearly two weeks following the spill. Karletta Chief, a professor of environmental science at the University of Arizona, conducted a study three years after the spill,  concluding  that a majority of farmers affected by the Gold King Mine spill had not returned to farming.

Within a year of the spill, then-Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper issued  an executive order  declaring a state of disaster emergency. The spill also  led to  the designation of the Bonita Peak Mining District, which contains 48 abandoned mines, as a Superfund site in 2016. Since then, around  3 million dollars  annually has been spent on removing metals from the water that continues to flow out of the Gold King Mine. Shortly after, then-Representative Jared Polis and Senator Michael Bennet introduced the  Gold King Mine Spill Recovery Act , legislation that would ensure the EPA continued to work with local communities and Tribes by requiring the agency to compensate those who were affected. In 2022, seven years after the legislation was introduced,  New Mexico  and the  Navajo Nation  received tens of millions of dollars in compensation from the EPA and Sunnyside Gold Corporation, the owner of the mine, as a result of the spill.

The shocking imagery of the river following the spill continues to negatively impact local businesses. Immediately after the spill, recreational use of the Animas River  closed for nearly 10 days , but the lingering fear of contaminants has plagued rafting companies and outdoor outfitters ever since. Today, images of the bright yellow river in Durango, Colorado continue to circulate on the internet, leading tourists, anglers, and whitewater enthusiasts to avoid the river. In a 2023  interview  with the Durango Herald, co-owner of Duranglers Flies and Supplies Tom Knopick said, “We still have people coming in today asking, ‘Is it OK? How’s that toxic spill?’”

Americans  strongly value  clean waterways for their own safety, for the health of their environment, and for the recreation opportunities they provide on public lands. Extractive practices like oil and gas drilling and mining introduce serious threats, like spills and pollution, that have lasting effects on local economies. In addition to the environmental costs, the financial burdens associated with cleaning oil and gas spills are steep—the EPA is still paying  millions  of dollars annually to remediate damages caused by the Gold King Mine, despite already having  paid  over $100 million in cleanup costs to date. Protecting America’s public lands from oil and gas drilling and mining is essential in order to preserve valuable waterways that communities, recreationists, wildlife, farmers, and economies rely so heavily on.

K.P. Kauffman Oil Spills and Leaks

In the Denver-Julesburg Basin and the Piceance Basin of Colorado, oil and gas company K.P. Kauffman has repeatedly violated orders to clean up wells and suspend sales. Between January 2015 and March 2021, the company reported about 85 spills, and after multiple violations, the state of Colorado  ordered  the closure of 87 of the company’s approximately 1200 wells and the cleanup of 29 sites. Many of the spills during this period fouled farm fields with contaminated dirt, while  one spill  from a wastewater removal project contaminated soil and groundwater near Legacy Elementary School in Frederick, Colorado, covering a nearby road with oil waste.

The 2021  state-ordered cleanup  came from the  Colorado Energy & Carbon Management Commission  (then known as the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission), which regulates the development and production of oil and gas in Colorado to protect public health, safety, welfare, the environment, and wildlife resources. The commission found K.P. Kauffman responsible for a “pattern of violations” at its well sites, including contaminated groundwater and soil, which results in poor drinking water quality and a loss of water supply, among other negative  outcomes . As a result, K.P. Kauffman was issued a $2 million fine, the  second-largest  issued by Colorado, but the company made an agreement with the ECMC to pay $795,000 as long as it cleaned its spill sites. It didn’t—by May 2022, the company reported  16 new spills , and by 2023, it had completed only three of 58 mandated site cleanups.

In February 2023, Colorado  suspended the company’s license  to pump and sell oil and gas due to its failure to comply with state regulations and its laggard attempts to clean up abandoned wells. Of the few wells that were supposedly repaired, shoddy work and inaccurate reporting were commonly found by state regulators. ECMC photos from 2023 site visits to one of K.P. Kauffman’s sites in Weld County  showed  sagging fences, large ditches filled with standing water, and piles of contaminated soil near crops.

In an attempt to defend its inaction around remediation, the company claimed it had spent $7.2 million on site cleanups and blamed the oil industry downturn in 2020 during the height of the pandemic as well as overburdensome regulations as factors that slowed down the cleanup of its facilities. It also pointed to bad weather, COVID-19 outbreaks, and issues with soil sample testing as possible reasons for delays in compliance. One week after the company lost its license to sell oil and gas, ECMC staff found that K.P. Kaufman conducted gas sales at about 20 of the company’s sites. In response, K.P. Kauffman claimed that its inability to sell oil and gas stopped the company from generating the money necessary to continue cleanup. Despite these failings, state regulators have given K.P. Kaufman  yet another chance : the company has until August 2023 to come back into compliance with the state’s environmental regulations, or it will permanently lose its license to produce and sell oil and gas.

According to ECMC commissioner John Messner, K.P. Kauffman is a  threat  to Colorado’s health, safety, environment, and wildlife. Randy Ackerman, also with the ECMC, argued that the company appeared to only put in enough effort to avoid being shut down. K.P. Kauffman’s continual violations and subsequent refusal to clean up after its wrongdoings demonstrate a general disdain for the health of Coloradans and a disregard for America’s lands and waters. Oil companies like K.P. Kauffman—bad actors who do the bare minimum at the lowest possible cost—should not be trusted to remediate their mistakes or to effectively avoid making mistakes in the future.

Stibnite Gold Project

The Stibnite Mining Area—on traditional Nez Perce homelands near the present-day town of Yellow Pine, Idaho and just outside the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness—was the site of an active gold and antimony mine and associated facilities including a mill (where ore—rock containing the desired minerals—is separated from other “waste” rock) and smelter (where ore is heated to extract the desired minerals) from the early 1900s until the mine was abandoned in the 1990s. Now, over twenty years later, Perpetua Resources, which now owns the mining area, is proposing to re-mine this Superfund-eligible site for gold. Perpetua also plans to extract antimony and conduct cleanup at the site in the process.  

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),  sources of contamination  remaining in the area today include the Bradley tailings pile, the largest tailings pile at the site; the site of the smelter and its waste piles; five heap-leach pads where chemicals were poured over piles of ore to extract the desired minerals; tailings ponds; unmaintained mine tunnels, through which contaminants can travel; and an open pit.  Over 10 million tons  of mine tailings and other waste cover more than half the site. Contaminants including arsenic, cyanide, and antimony are impacting soil, groundwater, and surface water in the area.

In addition, the East Fork of the South Fork of the Salmon River flows through one of the abandoned open pits, picking up contaminants along the way. The pit also disconnects the river, preventing salmon from moving between the Pacific Ocean and their spawning areas upstream. Nez Perce Tribal leaders estimate that salmon populations in the area are one percent of what was once  “the most thriving Chinook salmon population in the world”  before the impacts of mining, dams on the river, and overfishing caused the population to collapse. 

Prior to colonization of the area during the gold rush of the 1800s, the Stibnite area and over 13 million surrounding acres were the territory of the Nez Perce Tribe.  The Tribe ceded land to the U.S. government in an 1855 treaty  and asserts that it still holds treaty rights to the area including hunting and fishing rights. The impacts of mining and other activities on salmon populations are of particular concern to the Tribe. “Our whole goal is to try to restore the fishery, bring the fishery back to get the salmon back to a sustainable level from an ecological standpoint and also from a harvest standpoint,”  said  Emmit Taylor, a Nez Perce Tribal leader. “We’ve had to sustain so much loss already with many other impacts that have happened to the land, the utter transformation of this landscape. And one more impact could be too much for us to sustain,”  said  Nez Perce Tribal leader Nakia Williamson.

The EPA  proposed including the Stibnite Mining Area  on the  Superfund National Priorities List  in 2001, but the site was never formally included due to the state of Idaho’s refusal to concur with the listing. Instead, in 2021 EPA and the U.S. Forest Service reached a  settlement agreement  with Midas Gold—now Perpetua Resources—to undertake cleanup at the site as part of Perpetua’s plans to resume mining at the site to extract additional antimony and gold. 

 Antimony  most commonly occurs in the earth as the mineral stibnite, for which the site is named, and was in especially high demand during World War II due to its ability to strengthen steel and harden lead bullets, among other uses. Today, antimony is  important  in both renewable energy—such as emerging battery technologies for electric vehicles and energy storage—and military applications. The majority of the world’s antimony is extracted and produced in China, followed by Russia and Tajikistan. For these reasons, antimony is on the  U.S. list of critical minerals . Critical minerals projects are eligible to participate in an expedited permitting process under a federal government program known as FAST-41. The current Stibnite project is the first of only  two mining projects to move through the FAST-41 process . (The other is South32 Hermosa in Arizona.) 

Just over half of the proposed project area—51 percent—would occur on previously-disturbed lands, with  the remaining 49 percent of the project  causing new disturbance and damage. In addition to expanding previously-developed areas, Perpetua plans to develop a new open pit, which would be the third at the site.

In addition to doubling the area disturbed by mining, new mining also brings new risk, despite advancements in mining techniques and technology since the site was first mined. A study by the Idaho Headwaters Economic Study Group  cited research  showing that the rate of failure of tailing storage facilities has increased over time and that in a study of 27 modern gold mining projects in the U.S., 100 percent experienced at least one harmful spill. 

Perpetua is using the presence of antimony at the site and antimony’s inclusion on the critical minerals list to gain expedited permitting for what is really a gold mining project. The company  estimates  it will be able to extract almost five million ounces of gold, which would make it one of the top ten largest gold deposits in the country, and 148 million pounds of antimony over 12 to 15 years. Gold is expected to generate the overwhelming majority of revenue from the mine, according to the company’s  feasibility study .

For its part, Perpetua argues that revenue from gold extracted from the site is needed to finance the cleanup the company has promised to do as part of the 2021 settlement agreement. This cleanup  is set to include  stream diversions to divert clean water away from the tailings piles, removal of contaminated tailings piles and other waste, restoration of slopes and stream banks, and a study of adits (mine tunnels) that are allowing contamination to spread. This cleanup work, which began in 2022 and is scheduled to be completed in 2025, will improve habitat and reduce contamination, though water treatment will likely be needed in perpetuity. 

Perpetua also  estimates  that the project will create 500 jobs, and  a study  conducted by the Idaho Headwaters Economic Study Group estimated that total pay for local workers would amount to $18.7 million per year. However, that same study also valued the area’s visitor-recreation economy and resident non-labor income at $447 million per year. Senator Jim Risch has also touted the natural values of the area: “All of us value our mountains and streams greatly. Valley County is probably one of the prettiest places in America and the people who live there really value that tremendously,” Risch  remarked  during a hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. 

These mountains and streams can’t be taken for granted. The Idaho Headwaters Economic Study Group  calculated  that just a two percent decrease in visitation due to mining impacts on natural amenities would cancel out the gains from local jobs associated with the mine: “The proposed Stibnite Project represents a gamble that puts at risk a known and existing visitor and recreational economy that is supporting economic vitality in Valley County. The economic risk may not be worth the short-term gain.”

Idaho’s congressional delegation—which the Center for Responsive Politics reports collectively has received  more than $568,000  in donations from the mining industry—has consistently expressed support for the project. The delegation has also used the Stibnite Project to  argue  for cutting corners on environmental reviews, complaining that “ arduous ” environmental reviews were “ demoralizing ” to mining company executives. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Idaho Senator Jim Risch and Congressman Mike Simpson have received  more than $320,000 in combined donations  from the mining industry over their political careers.

The Stibnite Gold Project exemplifies how damage from poorly-regulated mining is still causing harm today and into the future. Because of insufficient funding to address impacts from historical activities and operators, the site is caught in a vicious cycle where there are few options other than to accept industry’s offer to help with the cleanup, but only as a side project of what will be an enormously profitable gold mining operation. The Stibnite Area demonstrates the need for careful planning, rigorous environmental safeguards, bond amounts that reflect the true cost of cleanup, and funding for mine remediation to reduce our dependence on mining industry charity to clean up the mistakes of the past.

Anaconda Copper Co.’s Washoe Smelter

In Anaconda, Montana, just down the road from Butte—the site of the Berkeley Pit and the Montana Resources mine, both also highlighted in this report—Anaconda Copper Co.’s Washoe Smelter processed copper from Butte  beginning in the early 1900s . Smelting, the process of heating ore to extract minerals such as copper from the rest of the rocks, causes significant pollution, including emitting toxic chemicals into the air. By 1977, Anaconda was struggling, and in a strategic miscalculation, Atlantic Richfield Co. (ARCO) bought the company, acquiring both the smelter and the Butte copper mine in hopes of reviving both. This didn’t happen: the smelter was shut down in 1980 and the mine was shut down in 1982, leaving ARCO with both the sites and the retroactive liability for the pollution they had caused. The smelter at Anaconda emitted toxins including arsenic, lead, and cadmium, all of which have known negative impacts on human health. In 1983 the area was declared a Superfund site by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) due primarily to arsenic contamination in both soil and water. Today, the smokestack—taller than the Washington Monument—is  a state park  that can only be viewed from a distance because of the contamination in the area.

As part of the Superfund designation process, ARCO and the EPA  negotiated an agreement for the cleanup of 300 square miles  surrounding the smelter, including private properties in the area. However, for some of the private properties, the agreement included a requirement that ARCO clean up only the area within a specific radius of the actual residence and only if arsenic levels exceeded 250 parts per million,  ten times the amount of arsenic found elsewhere in the area . As a result, some areas of private property were left unremediated. 

In 2008, residents of the nearby communities of Opportunity and Crackerville wanted to complete the cleanup themselves and sued to force ARCO to pay for it. ARCO argued, and the EPA agreed, that the agreement between ARCO and the EPA prevented ARCO from paying for or undertaking any cleanup beyond what was specified in the original agreement. The additional cleanup was  estimated to cost more than $83 million , and ARCO complained that it had already spent $470 million. The  case  eventually went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of ARCO in 2020, finding that the EPA approval would be required for the additional cleanup work.

In 2017, ARCO  offered  about 250 residents $1,000 each if they would sign contracts agreeing to not sue ARCO over future cleanup efforts.  About 100 residents  signed the contracts. These agreements were written so that residents signed away not only their rights, but  the rights of any future owners  of their properties. This would have reduced property values and made it difficult for residents to sell their properties in the future. Many did not understand the rights they were waiving or the full future implications when they signed the contracts, and some  felt they had been misled . “Usually I’m made aware of these situations prior to residents receiving it. We had no knowledge,” Anaconda-Deer Lodge County Chief Executive Bill Everett  said  at the time. ARCO agreed to void the contracts of any residents who wanted to change their minds.

By 2018, cleanup efforts had been ongoing for more than 30 years. Andrew Wheeler, then the acting EPA Administrator, and U.S. Senator Steve Daines toured the area that year. “Superfund is a priority for the administration, for President Trump, and it’s a priority for me as well,” Wheeler  said  at the time, though Trump followed that up with a proposal  to slash funding for Superfund  and for the EPA overall.

In 2020, ARCO agreed to pay for a hotel ($10 million), RV park ($3 million) and golf course renovations ($2 million) as part of an effort to attract tourism to the viewable-from-a-distance state park and the surrounding area. Daines, who has received $282,185 in contributions from the mining industry over the course of his career,  did not hesitate to take credit  for the agreement, which allows ARCO to invest in public relations projects instead of actual cleanup efforts. Meanwhile, Daines continues to advocate for faster permitting for mines,  co-sponsoring a bill  to streamline permitting for domestic critical mineral production.

In 2022, ARCO finally  agreed  to conduct additional cleanup and repay the federal government $48 million for cleanup costs, though this agreement still relies on the 250 parts-per-million level for arsenic,  higher than what residents believe is safe . The agreement also commits ARCO to addressing remaining waste piles and soil contamination in the surrounding area.

Anaconda was one of the first Superfund sites to be designated; more than 40 years later, taxpayer money is still being spent in an effort to complete the agreed-upon cleanup by 2025. Even when this work is completed, contamination will remain at the smokestack itself and on the surrounding land, including residential properties. The impacts of reckless mining and ore processing are still felt a generation later. New mines and processing facilities must be held to more rigorous human and environmental health standards to avoid burdening future generations with damaging pollution for decades into the future.

Zortman-Landusky Superfund Site

At a legacy gold mining complex and current Superfund site in northern Montana, two new operators are threatening $84 million dollars worth of completed cleanup work with rogue mining activity. Two shuttered gold mines—the Zortman mine and the Landusky mine—are just south and upstream of the Fort Belknap Reservation, the modern-day home of the Nakoda and Aaniiih Nations. The more recent mines, permitted in 1979 and 1981, were operated by Canada-based Pegasus Gold, which used  cyanide heap leaching  (a process in which a cyanide solution is poured over a pile of ore to extract gold) beginning in 1980. In 1993, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the state of Montana, and the Fort Belknap Indian Community  sued Pegasus  for violating the Clean Water Act by contaminating surface and groundwater on the reservation. (Cyanide heap leaching often leads to acid mine drainage, which contaminates surface and groundwater, and the state of Montana  banned  the practice via citizen-initiated ballot measure in 1998.)

Pegasus  filed for bankruptcy in 1998 , sticking the EPA, the state of Montana, and the Fort Belknap Indian Community with what was at the time estimated to be at least $30 million in cleanup costs, including water treatment in perpetuity. Zortman-Landusky  became a federal Superfund site in 2004 . The episode also inspired Montana to pass  a “bad actor” law  in 2001, which prohibits issuing new mining permits to any individual or company that fails to clean up a mining site. During Montana Governor Steve Bullock’s administration the state used this law to try to prevent mining permits from being granted to Hecla Mining, whose CEO had been a senior executive of Pegasus, but  the effort was dropped  by current governor Greg Gianforte’s administration. 

After taxpayers  spent almost $84 million  to clean up the Zortman-Landusky site, Luke Ployhar and Owen Voigt threatened to undo much of that work when they decided they wanted to remine the Superfund site to see if there was any more gold there, promising that this time would be different and that they would succeed in economically recovering the site’s gold reserves, which measure up to 1.2 million ounces,  according to Ployhar . Similar to claims by Perpetua Resources at the Stibnite site in Idaho, Ployhar and Voigt argue that the best way to address the damage from past mining is  to conduct new mining . 

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) had intended to submit a new 20-year ban on mineral extraction within the Superfund site boundary when an existing ban, first put in place in 2000, was set to expire in October 2020. However, in a bureaucratic error by the BLM, the new ban was not put in place until 48 hours after the old ban expired. Ployhar, who had purchased private property inside the Superfund boundary at the site at a  bankruptcy sale in 2001 , took advantage and submitted paperwork for new mining permits during the 48-hour gap between these two bans.

Ployhar’s mining company, Blue Arc LLC,  had received permission  from Montana’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to conduct small-scale exploration, but inspections conducted in March and May 2022 combined with satellite imagery revealed that the extent of activity at the site had far exceeded what those permits allowed, including  new disturbance at eight sites  that threatened to worsen the acid mine drainage that taxpayers have been paying for years to address. (Ployhar  contended  that some of the activity was related to developing several campgrounds, an IMAX theater, and homesites, among other ideas, in the midst of the Superfund site.) In addition, required environmental reviews had not been conducted, and the company had not posted a bond to cover any needed cleanup work. 

DEQ fined Blue Arc and Owen Voigt’s Legacy Mining LLC more than $500,000 for what it categorized as “major” violations” and  ordered  that all exploration and mining activity cease and that reclamation of the new disturbance be conducted. While Ployhar and Voigt can continue to pursue exploration and mining permits, it seems unlikely that they will be able to secure support from federal or state agencies or from the local community, and any environmental reviews conducted are likely to be unfavorable. Meanwhile, the BLM finalized the new 20-year mineral withdrawal for lands within the Superfund boundary in September 2022.

The Zortman-Landusky mine highlights the need for strong state laws and regulations—paired with equally strong and consistent enforcement. Even Ployhar and Voigt acknowledged that an open pit and cyanide heap leach proposal would be unacceptable, instead  proposing  underground cyanide vat leaching. “This isn’t open-pit mining. And, we’re not Pegasus,” Ployhar  said . Still, the state of Montana’s enforcement of its mining regulations and bonding requirements has prevented new mining from moving ahead at the site without proper review and is forcing Ployhar and Voigt to repair the damage they have already done. 

Berkeley Pit and Montana Resources Mines

The Berkeley Pit in Butte, Montana is the centerpiece of the nation’s largest Superfund site, and cleanup has already  cost nearly $1 billion  with no end in sight. The earliest mining in Butte dates back to the gold rush of the 1860s, and by the early 1880s Montana was the world’s largest copper producer thanks to the Butte mine. Anaconda Copper Co. developed the Berkeley Pit as an open-pit mine which began producing copper in 1955. 

In 1977, Atlantic Richfield Co. (ARCO) bought Anaconda Copper Co., acquiring the Berkeley Pit along with the Washoe Smelter in nearby Anaconda, Montana (also highlighted in this report). This didn’t work out for ARCO, which shut down the smelter in 1980 and the Berkeley Pit in 1982. However, ARCO also inherited retroactive liability for pollution caused by both the mine and the smelter. Since the mine was shut down in 1982, the pit has filled in with water. 

The resulting artificial lake is now over a mile long, a mile wide and  1,600 feet deep . The water in it is so toxic that it has  killed birds that tried to land on it , requiring a system of “ intermittent cannon fire ” to scare birds away. In 1987, the Butte area was added to the nearby existing Silver Bow Creek Superfund site, which was designated in 1983. Cleanup at the site is  still ongoing today  after 40 years. Andrew Wheeler, then the acting Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator, and U.S. Senator Steve Daines toured both the Butte area and the Anaconda site (also highlighted in this report) in 2018. “Superfund is a priority for the administration, for President Trump, and it’s a priority for me as well,” Wheeler  said  at the time, though Trump followed that up with a proposal  to slash funding for Superfund  and for the EPA overall.

Today, history threatens to repeat itself in the very same location. Since 1985, Montana Resources has operated a second large open-pit copper and molybdenum mine next to the Berkeley Pit, on the edge of a city of nearly 35,000 people. The Montana Resources mine generates dust from mining activity and truck traffic, despite large amounts of water being sprayed by trucks to keep dust levels down. 

While Montana Resources, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, and the EPA all insist that air quality monitoring shows no threats to human health,  scientists and residents remain concerned , especially since dust is often visible in clouds that billow up from the mine and in layers of grime that settle over neighborhoods.  For example , while air quality met the EPA’s standard for particulate matter, it exceeded the stricter standard recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). (The EPA has since decided to  reexamine  its standard and has  proposed making it stricter , though still not as strict as the WHO  recommends .) 

Independent studies have also  identified  time gaps in monitoring data,  found  elevated levels of metals that require additional testing, and connected mining activity in the area with  a variety of other potential health impacts . Furthermore,  an investigation revealed  the troubling extent to which the EPA, during the Trump administration, coordinated with Montana Resources to discredit the independent studies. That investigation  led Montana Resources to announce  in April 2023 that it would fund additional studies on the health impacts of dust from the mine.

Meanwhile, some of Montana’s representatives in Congress remain unquestioningly supportive of Montana Resources and of the mining industry generally. Despite  stating  that he is closely monitoring Superfund cleanup at Butte, U.S. Representative Matt Rosendale has also pledged strong support for the Montana Resources mine and other mining projects in the state. “I really do believe that if everyone that protests so adamantly truly believed in protecting the environment, that they would demand that this extraction took place here. And when I say here, I mean in the United States, because there’s nowhere in the world that does it more environmentally sound, more safe, and quite frankly, more humanely because of the way we treat our workers,”  said  Rosendale after a tour of the Montana Resources mine. Rosendale, who did not visit the Berkeley Pit on that tour, has received  over $114,000 in campaign donations  from the mining industry over the course of his career, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. “I think [Rosendale]’s a genuine supporter of natural resource industries,”  remarked  Montana Resources President Jack Standa.

The situation in Butte sends  a cautionary mixed message : industry and the EPA insist that the current open-pit copper mine near the Berkeley Pit does not present a health risk, even though industry and the EPA are simultaneously managing health and environmental risks from the Berkeley Pit, which has been a Superfund site for 40 years and counting. The site serves as an important reminder that strong laws are only as good as their enforcement. Improved environmental safeguards such as those in the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act do not prevent pollution by their mere existence. Robust, independently-verifiable monitoring and consistent penalties for violations are required to ensure that these important safeguards are having the intended effect of making pollution prohibitively costly for industry. 

Bridger Pipeline Spill

As damaging as extractive activities are to Western landscapes, the impacts are not limited to the sites; once extracted, material must be moved around the West, around the country, or even overseas to be processed into the final product that is distributed and sold for commercial or industrial use. In the case of oil and gas, material is frequently moved via pipelines, which have a long history of leaks and spills. 

To take just one example, in January 2015 the Bridger Pipeline—a 12-inch steel pipeline which gathers crude oil from North Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming—broke and spilled at least 50,000 gallons of oil, according to the pipeline company’s estimates, over the course of an hour into the Yellowstone River upstream of Glendive, Montana. Glendive, a community of about 6,000 people, relies on the Yellowstone for its drinking water supply, and by the day after the spill Glendive residents began noticing that their tap water smelled “ like diesel fuel. ” Officials confirmed that oil had gotten into the water supply intake, and drinking water was trucked to Glendive “ as a precaution .” City officials finally issued an advisory against drinking the water two days after the spill occurred, and benzene, a known carcinogen, was found in the drinking water. “I think the city should have told us more and the city should have been quicker,”  one resident said .

Cleanup efforts were complicated by the fact that the spill occurred in January, when ice on the river, not uncommon in Montana in winter, made finding and capturing the oil much more difficult. “These are horrible working conditions to try to recover oil. Normally you at least see it, but you can’t see it, you can’t smell it. ... We’re going to have to hunt and peck through ice to get it out,” Paul Peronard, on-site coordinator for the Environmental Protection Agency,  said at the time . An oil sheen was visible on the surface of the river  as far as Sidney, Montana —60 river miles downstream—and oil was found even further downstream  at the confluence of the Yellowstone with the Missouri River  in the days following the spill. In the end,  less than ten percent  of the spilled oil was recovered.

“As an industry, we do have a zero incident tolerance,” Tad True, vice president of Bridger Pipeline and sister company Belle Fourche Pipeline,  said  at the time. However, both Bridger and Belle Fourche had  a combined 30 pipeline incidents , spilling a total of 283,832 gallons of crude oil between them, from 2006 to 2014. In November 2014, just two months before the spill, the Bridger Pipeline company received  a warning letter  from the U.S. Department of Transportation alerting the company that a pipeline inspection found a probable violation of safety regulations, though the department did not assess any penalties or take any other enforcement action other than to advise the company to address the violation. Meanwhile, in August 2014, True testified at a U.S. Department of Energy field hearing in Cheyenne, Wyoming,  where he complained , “[F]ederal permitting decisions are taking longer, growing more complicated, and resulting in more unnecessary delays.”

Furthermore, the section of pipe that runs under the Yellowstone River was replaced  sometime “in the 1960s or 1970s ” but at the time of the 2015 spill, Bridger Pipeline did not know details about how the section was replaced or with what materials. Adding to the confusion, a survey conducted in 2011 found that the pipe was buried only 1.5 feet below the riverbed, but after the 2015 spill the company began referencing a second survey which found that the pipeline had been buried 7.9 feet below the riverbed. These conflicting surveys raised questions about whether the company had concealed information to hide the true condition of the pipeline’s Yellowstone crossing and contributed to the federal government’s lawsuit, filed in January 2022, against the company for violating the Clean Water Act. Bridger’s attorneys dismissed the questions about the conflicting surveys as “ conspiracy theories .” “We think the government is trying to find something that’s just not there,”  said  Bridger Pipeline spokesperson Bill Salvin.

But clearly there was something there: just a few months later, in July 2022,  yet another Bridger Pipeline spill occurred , this time in sandy soil near the eastern Wyoming community of Sussex. After initially estimating that 420 gallons of diesel fuel had spilled, the company  revised its estimate  to at least 45,000 gallons. This time contaminated soil was removed from the site and spread over a nearby dirt road so that the spilled diesel fuel could evaporate into the air. “We’re focused on minimizing the environmental impact and we’re going to replace the soil and restore the land as close as possible to its original condition,”  said  Salvin, the Bridger spokesperson. Once again, no enforcement action was taken at the time.

Ultimately, Bridger was fined $1 million by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality following the 2015 spill, and it later paid $2 million to the federal government and the state of Montana  in a settlement deal . In July 2023, the Bridger and Belle Fourche companies  agreed  to pay a civil penalty of $12.5 million, as well as implement a variety of compliance measures, to resolve claims connected to both the 2015 spill and a 2016 spill in North Dakota.

The Bridger Pipeline spills are far from the only spills to have happened on the Yellowstone River. In 2011, a spill on the Exxon  Silvertip Pipeline  dumped at least 63,000 gallons of oil into the river near Yellowstone National Park, for which the company paid $12 million. And in 2023, an  estimated 500,000 pounds of molten asphalt  spilled into the river, this time when a bridge collapse led to ten train cars falling into the river. In addition to contaminating drinking and irrigation water, spills also contaminate water that wildlife rely on for drinking and for habitat, as well as contaminate surrounding soils, extending the disturbance to even more wildlife and habitat. The next major spill is not a question of if, but when; “Montana has more than three dozen river crossings where pipelines are a concern,” U.S. Senator Steve Daines of Montana  said . 

The Center for Western Priorities tracks oil and gas spills and compiles an annual report of the  thousands of spills reported each year  in Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming. While reporting requirements and penalties are important steps to curb spills they are clearly not sufficient to drive industry to change its behavior. “I’m sorry, but $12 million is a drop in the bucket for ExxonMobil and doesn’t teach them anything about accountability,”  said  Alexis Bonogofsky, a Montana landowner whose lands were impacted by Exxon’s 2011 Silvertip spill. 

Methane Waste in the Permian Basin

Oil and gas companies operating in the Permian Basin in New Mexico are wasting a huge amount of methane, which is going directly into the atmosphere—where it has  more than 80 times  the warming effect of carbon dioxide. In 2022, New Mexico gas production skyrocketed to 32 percent higher than its pre-pandemic peak. The same year, oil and gas producers in New Mexico  reported losing 21.6 million cubic feet  of methane, a quantity worth around $138 million, through venting and flaring, in which methane is released or burned instead of captured and sold. From February 2022 to February 2023, companies report having vented and flared natural gas from New Mexico wells nearly 39,000 times.

The discovery of  a massive, 2-mile-long plume  of methane near Carlsbad, New Mexico in 2022 brought attention to the scale of methane waste occurring in the Permian Basin. Methane is an odorless, colorless gas, but it can be detected by infrared cameras. The plume, which was discovered  by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) , was venting  more than 40,300 pounds  of methane per hour. That’s equivalent to about eight cars driven for a year every hour, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s emissions equivalency calculator. State regulators  investigated the methane leak  at the time, but no operators have been held accountable to date. 

In addition to the large plume discovered by NASA, Bloomberg News discovered two other methane plumes in the past year. The first,  discovered in January 2023 , was reported to New Mexico state regulators by Bloomberg News, which tracks methane emissions in the U.S. through satellites. The plume appeared to originate at an oil and gas facility in the Permian Basin owned by APA Corp. The company  said in a report  to the state that it discovered the December 24 release a month after it occurred and “determined the flare pilot failed to light when gas was sent to the flare resulting in venting of the gas to [the] atmosphere.”

The second plume, also discovered and reported to state regulators by Bloomberg News,  occurred in February 2023 .  Satellite images captured by NASA appeared to show a cloud of methane over  a gas well owned by ExxonMobil  in the Permian Basin in New Mexico. The release, which is estimated to have contained 529,000 cubic feet of methane, was reportedly caused by a fitting that broke on a high-pressure gas line. Exxon  blamed an employee  who they said “forgot to file a form” for not reporting the 2023 methane cloud. The climate impact of the release is roughly equivalent to the annual emissions of about 170 cars,  according to Bloomberg . ExxonMobil  spent $3,130,000  lobbying the federal government in 2022. 

While methane pollution is incredibly bad for the atmosphere, it also impacts human health. Methane is  almost always emitted  alongside health-damaging air pollutants which cause premature birth, asthma, cancer, and other health impacts. Oil and gas pollution  costs billions in health damages  in New Mexico annually and contributes to early deaths and childhood asthma.  Over 144,000 New Mexicans , including 20 percent of the state’s Indigenous population, live within half a mile of an oil and gas facility.

New Mexico is trying to rein in methane pollution, but its efforts are not yet proving successful.  In 2021 and 2022, the state issued new rules that regulate methane  as a “wasted industrial resource”  rather than a greenhouse gas, require producers to  report amounts of methane  they produce and lost, require producers to file explanations each time gas is burned off, and increase well inspections. The state  is also requiring  oil and gas companies to capture 98 percent of their methane waste by the end of 2026.

New Mexico has struggled to enforce these new regulations due to budgetary constraints and the rules’ reliance on self-reporting by companies.  According to Searchlight New Mexico , the state only funded 14 inspectors for state-wide inspections, audits, and internal reviews to verify companies’ reports, which is “an impossible workload,”  according to a spokesman  with the New Mexico Oil Conservation District. Additionally, in 2022,  29 operators reported  capturing more natural gas than they produced, which is physically impossible, indicating self-reporting may not be very accurate. Meanwhile, state records based on industry self-reporting show methane waste is increasing, not decreasing.  From November to December 2022  flaring increased 39 percent and venting more than doubled.

The federal government is also trying to reduce methane waste from wells on federal public lands, including in New Mexico. A rule  proposed by the Biden administration  in 2022 would place monthly limits on flaring, as well as require operators to implement methane leak detection programs for wells on federal lands, where nearly a tenth of U.S. oil and natural gas production takes place. That rule  is not yet final . Meanwhile, a federal rule  amended in 2022  requires operators to find and plug leaks at all U.S. wells, including those on private land.

The large amount of methane being wasted by the oil and gas industry in the Permian Basin is a huge issue that is exacerbating climate change. Meanwhile, the federal government  continues to lease public land  in New Mexico to oil and gas companies to drill new wells. In order to rein in the rampant methane waste occurring in the Permian Basin, both state and federal regulators need to step up their efforts. This will not come cheap, as New Mexico’s efforts to regulate methane have shown operators cannot be trusted to accurately self-report their waste and that current penalties are not sufficient to stop the waste from occurring in the first place. 

White Mesa Uranium Mill

The White Mesa Mill is the only active uranium mill in the United States. It is also  a 300-acre radioactive waste field . It is located just a few miles east of Bears Ears National Monument and a few miles north of the White Mesa Ute Mountain Ute community, where around 300 Ute Mountain Ute Tribal members live. The mill is composed of processing facilities as well as tailings ponds, where radioactive waste is deposited in open pits. The mill has long been a cause of concern for the Tribe, which  has filed complaints with the state  against it for contaminating groundwater that lies upgradient of the White Mesa community. 

The White Mesa Mill, now owned by Canada-based Energy Fuels Resources (which also owns the Pinyon Plain Mine, also highlighted in this report),  opened in the 1980s  to process uranium mined on the nearby Navajo Nation and surrounding area. The mill processed uranium ore into yellowcake, a concentrated powder used in energy production and nuclear weapons. The tailings ponds at the mill, which together are the size of about 382 football fields, were originally constructed with  just a single layer of plastic lining  to separate radioactive waste from the ground, with no leak detection system. The mill was initially permitted to operate  for just 15 years , leading the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and local officials to believe reclamation would begin shortly thereafter. Instead of closing, however, the mill has begun processing uranium-laden waste from contaminated sites around the world,  becoming a dumping ground  for radioactive waste.

The mill extracts a small amount of uranium from the waste and stores the rest of the waste in tailings ponds—a practice that continues to this day. By extracting uranium from the waste, the mill is allowed to operate  as a radioactive waste processing facility  without meeting the federal standards required of such a facility. As of 2022, more than 15 streams of radioactive waste were known to have been approved for shipment to the mill, according to  a report by the Grand Canyon Trust , and the mill has plans to build additional tailings ponds to handle future waste. “The facility has gone from being the North American continent’s dry low-level waste disposal facility of choice ... to now being the world’s radioactive waste dump,” Scott Clow, environmental programs director for the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe,  said . 

Construction of the White Mesa Mill  destroyed archaeological and burial sites  important to the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, as well as the Tribe’s traditional hunting grounds. It also destroyed places where Ute Mountain Ute people once gathered plants for basketry and medicine. Ute Mountain Ute Tribal members say they have seen  an alarming increase  in health problems in recent decades. The Tribe claims that the tailings ponds are harmful to their health, groundwater, and land. For example, Tribal members  say they’ve seen deer hop the fence  and drink from the tailings ponds and have also found animals with green-colored meat. Now, Tribal members travel great distances to hunt and collect herbs safely,  according to High Country News . The Tribe frequently points out that the tailings ponds were not designed to exist for 40 years and  are prone to leaking . In July 2022, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe  a $75,000 grant  to study Tribal members’ health data and environmental conditions linked to the White Mesa Mill.

Groundwater contamination at the mill  has continually worsened  over the past four decades. There are documented contamination plumes beneath the tailings ponds, which lie upgradient of the White Mesa community. The state of Utah, at the request of Energy Fuels, has repeatedly moved the goalposts for acceptable levels of contamination in groundwater near the site. Since 2012, Energy Fuels requested modifications to groundwater compliance levels  at least 27 times  and Utah’s Division of Waste Management and Radiation Control has granted all of Energy Fuels’ requests. Additionally, between 2012 and 2013, Energy Fuels admitted in court filings that one of the tailings ponds at the mill  emitted more radon  into the air than allowed by federal regulations. According to the EPA, radon is the number one cause of lung cancer in non-smokers.

Utah politicians have similarly sided with Energy Fuels in their quest to keep the mill open by diversifying its revenue streams and operations. Utah Senators  Mitt Romney  and  Mike Lee , as well as  Representative John Curtis , all appear in videos on Energy Fuels’ YouTube page, in which they congratulate the company for expanding into the processing of rare earth elements. During  an October 2021 Senate hearing , Lee used White Mesa to argue against including a royalty on hard rock minerals in a 2021 legislative package. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Romney  has received $1,785,986 in donations  over the course of his career from the mining industry, while Lee  has received $115,228 . Energy Fuels  spent $200,000  lobbying the federal government in 2022. 

The construction and ongoing operation of the White Mesa Mill underscores a historic and ongoing lack of concern for the health of Tribal communities by politicians as well as state and federal agencies. It also highlights the externalized costs of nuclear energy, which relies on destructive uranium mining and produces dangerous radioactive waste. Finally, the fact that the mill has become a de facto radioactive waste dumping ground without going through the permitting process required for the establishment of such a facility illustrates a gaping hole in the federal government’s regulation of radioactive waste.