Judge refuses to rule on cyanide case

A federal judge in the U.S. says he will not issue a ruling on a lawsuit filed by native leaders from the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in Montana who are trying to force the cleanup of the abandoned Zortman and Landusky gold mines, near Malta.

U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy says the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre leaders’ complaint fails to challenge a specific agency action, and that little can be done unless tribal leaders directly challenge a 2002 environmental study and record of decision on the reclamation work.

Earlier this year, the tribes sued the state’s Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), along with the mine site’s present owner, Luke Ployhar.

The lawsuit, filed in Helena, claimed the open-pit gold mines violate the federal Clean Water Act and that polluted water continues to flow from the mines and on to the reservation.

In his ruling, Molloy said the only remedy for environmental damage to land and water from the abandoned mines is reclamation, and that is already under way.

The company that operated the mines, Pegasus Gold, ceased operations and filed for bankruptcy in 1998. The tribal leaders say the company did not have a large-enough reclamation bond to ensure adequate cleanup of cyanide contamination. Cyanide leaching is now banned in the state but a proposal to once again allow cyanide leaching is on the November ballot.

The native leaders assert that polluted water continues to drain from the mines in the Little Rocky Mountains, along the southern portion of the reservation.

They argue the DEQ and the BLM assumed responsibility for the cleanup in the 1990s, while Ployhar is responsible for residue currently leaking from the area.

The BLM is cleaning up the site by spending about US$800,000 a year to send water through treatment plants. Costs for reclaiming the ground will total about US$34 million.