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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Mines want pollution-rules exception

John Miller Associated Press

BOISE – Phosphate-mining companies including Monsanto Co. and J.R. Simplot Co. want the Legislature to bar Idaho regulators from forcing them to restore mineral-tainted groundwater beneath their operations to its natural condition once they shutter their mines.

The mining industry says that standard is impossible to meet.

In legislation introduced this week in the state Senate, the Idaho Mining Association that represents the companies also aims to expand the state Department of Environmental Quality’s definition of mining areas to clear the way for the companies to pollute groundwater in perpetuity – provided the pollution stays beneath waste rock piles and processing plants.

The bill comes after the Idaho Mining Association and the Idaho Conservation League, an environmental group, failed to agree last year to proposed new DEQ rules to clarify what must be done to address groundwater pollution beneath open-pit mines.

In November, the agency’s board postponed the talks until April 2008.

With negotiations on hold, industry lobbyist Jack Lyman now is pushing for lawmakers to intervene on behalf of mines that are concentrated in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest near the Idaho-Wyoming border.

Sen. Chuck Coiner, R-Twin Falls, said at this week’s hearing he fears the industry’s demands could leave sites adjacent to phosphate mines vulnerable to contamination, partly because it’s so difficult to determine the flow of water in underground aquifers.

For instance, in eastern Idaho, selenium pollution from defunct phosphate mines and their waste piles in the late 1990s killed at least four horses and hundreds of sheep after they drank from contaminated water.

“How are you going to contain it, and not affect the waters around your mine?” Coiner asked.

“I’m not asking for a license to pollute,” Lyman said, adding nothing in his bill absolves companies of responsibility to protect neighboring property. “We don’t want to affect farmers who are off-site.”

Rick Phillips, a spokesman for J.R. Simplot, didn’t immediately return a phone call seeking comment.

At the heart of the issue is the Idaho Groundwater Quality Plan, passed by the 1992 Legislature to protect aquifer quality while still allowing mining activities by companies that employ about 4,000 workers statewide.