Tribe Challenges Permit To Import Waste Spokane Indians Say License Obtained By Dawn Is Invalid

The Spokane Indians and a rural coalition are challenging Dawn Mining Company’s state permit to import tons of uranium wastes to Eastern Washington.

They’ll argue Friday in an Olympia courtroom that the disposal license Dawn obtained from the Lowry administration in 1995 is invalid because Dawn never posted a $20 million bond to cover the estimated cost of cleaning up its defunct uranium mill site.

Attorneys for Dawn and Washington state say Dawn already has spent nearly $6 million on the cleanup and doesn’t need to post a bond until it’s ready to dump waste in the gaping mill pit at Ford.

Despite having the license, Dawn still hasn’t obtained any federal contracts to import up to 35 million cubic yards of mildly contaminated uranium mill tailings.

Dawn wants a deal to import tailings with the U.S. Department of Energy, the agency responsible for disposing up to 82 million cubic feet of uranium-tainted wastes from weapons production sites in the East.

Washington citizens are at risk because a bond serves as leverage to assure Dawn completes the cleanup, said David Mann, attorney for Dawn Watch.

“If Dawn walks away tomorrow, the state is left holding the bag,” Mann said.

Dawn is a subsidiary of Newmont Mining Co., the wealthiest mining company in North America. But Dawn officials are pleading poverty, saying they need the taxpayer-funded disposal deal to fill up the mill pit so they can cap it and finally walk away.

The Spokane Indians, whose reservation adjoins the mill, agree the state should have required a bond in 1995, when Dawn got its disposal permit from the Washington Department of Health.

The Spokanes are concerned “that the laws enacted by the Washington Legislature to protect the public from radiation hazards from abandoned uranium mill sites are not being acted on in a way that protects the tribe,” said Shannon Work of Coeur d’Alene, the tribe’s attorney.

A lawyer for Washington state will argue that state law gives the health department flexibility in dealing with Dawn, said Assistant Attorney General Pat DeMarco.

A state order requiring a huge bond up front would “compel Dawn’s abandonment of the millsite,” says Dawn’s attorney, Jeffrey Leppo of Seattle.

But there are signals a bond may be posted soon.

About a month ago, a bond brokerage firm contacted the health department and asked questions about the Dawn site, said Gary Robertson, chief of the department’s division of radiation protection.

“It’s my hope they’ll post the bond shortly,” he said.

Robertson recently wrote to Dawn asking for commitments to a timeline for cleanup.

Dawn plans to fill the mill pit by 2010 and finish the entire site by 2019, said Dawn vice president Robert Nelson in his Feb. 11 reply to Robertson.

And if Dawn doesn’t get any DOE disposal contracts?

“I believe Dawn will close the site with clean fill if they don’t get the (uranium) contracts,” Robertson said.

“If they walk (without reclaiming the site), we’d proceed with legal action against them,” he said.

, DataTimes