Dawn Mining Appeal Expected
A state Health Department review judge Thursday upheld the department’s decision to allow Dawn Mining Co. to import radioactive uranium mill tailings to pay for cleaning up an abandoned mill at Ford, Wash.
Review Judge Colleen Klein’s action clears the way for a lawsuit by the Dawn Watch coalition of environmental organizations and the Spokane Tribe, whose reservation is next to the mill.
Klein’s ruling swept away the last of 20 arguments that a supplemental environmental impact statement was inadequate to support the Health Department decision. She dismissed 17 issues before conducting a hearing last month in Spokane.
The hearing dealt with the tribe’s argument that hydrogeological studies were inadequate to ensure there is no further contamination of nearby Chamokane Creek, also known as Tshimakain Creek, which flows into the reservation.
Dawn Watch arguments at the hearing were that plans for cleaning up the Midnite Mine - which supplied the Dawn mill - should have been considered and that rail transportation of the waste through other states needed more attention.
Dawn Watch spokesman Owen Berio, of Springdale, was not immediately available for comment.
The tribe and Dawn Watch already have filed a lawsuit in Thurston County challenging the Dawn uranium mill closure plan and the Health Department license that allows importation of more mill tailings to raise money. An appeal of Klein’s decision probably would be combined with the pending lawsuit.
No trial date has been scheduled.
Klein noted in her decision that the tribe’s key witness, Valleyford hydrogeologist Fred Kirschner, had no experience with uranium mill sites. Two hydrogeologists representing Dawn and the Health Department have much more experience, she said.
Klein said Dawn Watch, which presented no witnesses, failed to show that the separate mill and mine cleanups are so closely related that they require a joint study.
Washington Health Secretary Bruce Miyahara decided earlier this year to let Dawn raise money for the cleanup by putting imported mill waste in a plastic-lined disposal pit at the mill.
Inadequate laws failed to require an adequate cleanup bond when the mill opened in 1957. Dawn now says it is nearly bankrupt.
, DataTimes