Oleblue
3 weeks ago
Mine Tailings Solution
Cleaning up the mine tailings would be a big undertaking due to so many mineral compounds involved.
Professor Karen Hudson-Edwards has done work in this area. She works at the Earth and Environmental Sciences, Camborne School of Mines, Exceter University, UK.
She is an environmental geochemist and mineralogist and a member of the Mining, Environment and Society group. She mainly works on the environmental impacts of mining and on sustainable mining practices. Specifically, she researches the mechanisms and products of contaminant cycling in mine wastes, ground and surface water, contaminated land and dusts, the development of remediation and management schemes for mine wastes, the global biogeochemical and health impacts of mining, and sustainable mining of technology metals and critical raw materials.
Here are three of her lectures:
Lecture: The What, Where, How and Why of Mine Tailings
Lecture: Environmental Minerals: Bacteria, Worms, Dusts, Toxins and the Human Body
Lecture: The Global Biogeochemical and Health Impacts of Mining
Oleblue
3 weeks ago
A Supreme Court Ruling May Make It Harder for Government Agencies to Use Good Science
The Supreme Court overturned Chevron deference, a 40-year legal principle that has shaped the role of government agencies. The outcome could affect medication approval, pollution regulation, and more
By Meghan Bartels
June 25, 2024
Editor’s Note (6/28/24): On Friday the Supreme Court overruled the 1984 case that had established Chevron deference. “Agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities,” the new opinion read. “Courts do.”
The Supreme Court is set to rule as soon as Wednesday on a seemingly tedious pair of cases that question who should pay for congressionally mandated observers on fishing boats: the owners of the boats or a federal agency. But far from being small fish, the opinions may rejigger the balance of power among the branches of government and weaken the role of science in policymaking.
These cases target a long-standing precedent called Chevron deference, which determines how courts evaluate a given federal agency’s interpretation of congressional statutes that guide that agency’s actions. These statutes often contain accidental or intentional ambiguities. And for the past 40 years, agencies have had the leeway to interpret those ambiguities because courts have recognized that these offices are staffed by people with special training and scientific expertise.
But legal experts say that Chevron deference will almost certainly change—the only question now is whether the Supreme Court will completely overturn the principle or merely narrow it. And the Court’s decision will ripple far beyond the fishing community. The ruling could affect how medication is approved and what pollutants are regulated; it challenges the authority of a host of agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, where Chevron deference began.
“Rolling back Chevron is going to create a huge paradigm shift in how the government works and even how Congress legislates,” says Andrew Twinamatsiko, director of the Health Policy and the Law Initiative at Georgetown University.
Chevron deference gets its name from a 1984 Supreme Court case that hinged on how the EPA chose to interpret Congress’s Clean Air Act. Under the administration of President Ronald Reagan, the EPA had decided to define the term “source” in a way that would allow a host of new industrial projects to evade pollution emission regulation, says David Doniger, an attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), who argued—and lost—that case.
In its original opinion for the 1984 case, the Court established two principles for evaluating an agency’s actions when it fulfills instructions from Congress. If the relevant statute was clear, the case determined, the agency would have to abide by it. If the statute was ambiguous, a court would have to defer to the agency’s reasonable interpretation of what it might mean—otherwise the judicial branch would risk overstepping its mandate and entering the realm of policymaking. In the situation Doniger and the NRDC had objected to, the court decided, the Clean Air Act was ambiguous, and the EPA had made a reasonable interpretation. So the agency’s relevant projects were not subject to the regulations.
At the time, it was an unremarkable reminder of judicial restraint that had been the norm for a century, Doniger says. “It really wasn’t breaking new ground,” he says. “But it became a very concise restatement of that approach.” In the decades since the decision, the Chevron opinion has been cited more than 16,000 times in courts across the country.
Even Doniger has come to appreciate the policy. A particularly important feature of Chevron deference, he says, is its nonpartisan nature. “It is a neutral principle,” Doniger says. “It lets conservative administrations cut back on the scope of these laws, and it lets liberal administrations do more with them.”
A Threat to Scientific Expertise
Judicial deference to agencies’ expertise is crucial to how U.S. medical and environmental regulation, in particular, currently works. For example, the FDA currently uses its discretion to loosen approval requirements for treatments of rare diseases, such as by permitting historical records to substitute for a control group in a clinical trial, says Reshma Ramachandran, an assistant professor at the Yale School of Medicine, who has a background in public policy. And the agency’s ability to regulate new products—such as vaping systems and genetic tests marketed directly to consumers—can rely on the ambiguity in terms such as “medical devices” in legislation from Congress.
Ramachandran worries that if Chevron deference falls, the FDA will become more cautious out of fear of being taken to court and losing. “I think the government agencies are just going to be much more hesitant to follow the science and instead might make decisions based on the political and legal landscape,” she says. New treatments might take longer to be approved, and on the other end of the spectrum, people could be exposed to dangerous or misleading products that were able to evade regulation, she worries.
Doniger cites the EPA’s regulation of carbon emissions as pollutants and OSHA regulations that targeted the spread of COVID in workplaces early in the pandemic as examples of the sort of situation in which Chevron deference can allow agencies to take the lead on topics that are firmly within their territory but about which Congress has yet to create detailed legislation.
Since the development of Chevron deference, Congress and federal agencies have settled into a pattern that works, experts say. Congress writes legislation—which sometimes remains in place for decades—with ambiguities, and the agencies that know the relevant topics better turn that legislation into meaningful and practical policies.
“Congress doesn’t have the time or expertise to fill in the details for thousands of regulations, and it’s hard to anticipate the twists and turns of the future and exactly what [lawmakers] need to spell out specifically,” says Dena Adler, a senior attorney at New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity. Agencies use their expertise to turn broad-brush statutes into nitty-gritty policies, and the courts intervene only in extreme circumstances.
Of course, that’s assuming Congress passes legislation in the first place, which is becoming increasingly difficult amid deep partisanship. “Since Congress is so gridlocked, we’re often using existing laws to meet novel challenges,” Adler says. Without Chevron deference, she fears courts may reject agencies’ attempts to fit new issues or technologies into the scope of existing laws. “I think this decision could have real implications for agencies’ ability to tackle the problems of the day like climate change,” she says. The Clean Air Act specifically directed the EPA to incorporate chemicals that would later be determined to be air pollutants, but not all legislation includes this kind of future-proofed language.
Blurring the Lines of Agencies’ Authority
Chevron precedent isn’t the only source of agencies’ authority, particularly on technical matters. In some situations, legislation does explicitly order a given agency to make certain evaluations, and agencies’ actions in these circumstances should be respected even without Chevron deference, Adler says. And other legal principles exist that support reasonable scientific judgements made by agencies, she notes. But Adler worries these principles may come under fire anyway as small-government advocates seek to blur the lines between such situations and those covered by Chevron deference, which applies exclusively to interpretations of congressional statutes.
Regardless of whether Chevron is overturned or weakened, federal agencies will likely face a spike in lawsuits as adversaries feel out the boundaries of the Supreme Court’s decision, experts say. Challenges that succeed will force agencies to start fresh on a given issue after federal workers already spent years developing its related rule. Even unsuccessful challenges pull agency resources from other work, says Emily Hammond, a professor of law at the George Washington University. “It’s a huge distraction, and it’s also years and years of work,” they say. “It is a big disruption to have a rule overturned.”
The less deference agencies expect to have in court—and the more often they expect to end up there—the more limited policies are likely to be, experts agree. Rather than using the full powers of the statutes Congress has written, agencies will likely err on the side of caution.
Cultivating hesitancy within federal agencies isn’t necessarily antiscience, but it’s hardly proscience either. “Certainly that weakens the capacity of the government to respond when science reveals a threat to people’s health or people’s lives,” Doniger says.
Weakening Chevron deference “doesn’t actually deny that COVID is transmitted in the workplace or that air pollution is causing cancer or causing climate change; it just makes it much harder for the government to do anything about it,” he says. “It comes down to whether the government can protect you.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/supreme-courts-chevron-deference-decision-could-make-science-based/
Oleblue
4 weeks ago
Engineered Solutions To End Tailings
Our energy-efficient processes enable recovery of high value minerals from waste stockpiles or tailings, whilst our water management technology allows you to reduce or totally eliminate the need for tailings dams.
At CDE we have made it our business to protect, preserve and reinvigorate the environment using the most sustainable methods. Pioneering a new era of mine waste management, we engineer custom solutions to re-purpose materials previously deemed unusable.
These innovative technologies not only have a positive effect on the environment but unlock new revenue streams for our customers, proving that good environmental practice makes good business sense.
The Challenge With Tailings Dams
Tailings from mining operations are usually stored in large tailings dams as a slurry that contains the waste materials from the beneficiation process. This slurry includes mineral material, metals and any reagents used in the beneficiation process.
Acid generation and metal mobilisation increase within the tailings dams because of the exposure of the tailings to air and water. This can lead to run off or seepage which causes a phenomenon known as Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) or Acid Rock Drainage (ARD).
This is one of the main areas of concern for the mining industry at present and as such mine operators are increasingly adopting alternative means of tailings disposal to minimise the impact of the mining operation on the external environment and comply with increasing regulation and legislation in this area.
We offer a range of equipment for the classification and thickening of your tailings to help unlock the value in the tailings and ensure a safer mine for both the environment and your operations.
Modular Tailings Dewatering Solutions
The key to unlocking this value is through a combination of washing, scrubbing and classification or by isolating those difficult to remove fractions using our modular tailings recovery systems.
High value ore is recovered through separation of fine ore fractions from slurries or ponds, while coarse fractions are washed, scrubbed and separated from waste feeds.
Following this additional filtration processes can be employed to maximise the removal of water from your tailings.
This will include the introduction of our filter press or decanter centrifuge systems. Your customised tailings management system will include a variety of processing phases and these will include:
Fines Management - recover material for further use and minimise waste volumes
Primary Water Treatment - recover up to 90% of your process water for recirculation to your ore processing plant
Final Tailings Dewatering - the only waste product is now a filter cake with dry solids content of 80%, effectively eliminating the requirement for tailings dams
Dewatering Concentrate - The filter press can also be applied in the processing of a variety of ores for the dewatering of the concentrate in preparation for further processing – some examples are gold, copper, zinc, lead and silver.
https://www.cdegroup.com/us/applications/other-applications/mining-mineral-ores/mine-tailings
Oleblue
4 weeks ago
Northern Dynasty: Two Alaska Native Village Corporations Sue to Stop EPA’s Pebble Project Veto
June 26, 2024
View in PDF
June 26, 2024 Vancouver – Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. (TSX: NDM; NYSE American: NAK) ("Northern Dynasty" or the "Company") reports that Iliamna Natives Limited (“INL”) and Alaska Peninsula Corporation (“APC”), two Alaska Native Village corporations representing communities closest to the Pebble Project (“Pebble”), have filed suit against the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) for exceeding its authority with the veto action against Pebble. John Shively, CEO of the Company’s 100%-owned U.S.-based subsidiary Pebble Limited Partnership made the following statement regarding the action:
“The jobs, economic activity and revenue from Pebble would bring significant positive benefits to the communities closest to us, as represented by INL and APC in this lawsuit. From the beginning, the EPA has given little weight to the views expressed by these communities because it did not fit their predetermined narrative against the project.”
“The ‘No Pebble’ scenario for the communities represented by these two village corporations is one in which there is continued outmigration, increased already-higher-than-average cost of living, and lack of opportunities. A desire to change this trajectory and find good jobs for their shareholders is a key underpinning of the litigation filed today. It is ultimately about opportunity and hope.”
“We have local support for the project, and the Final Environmental Impact Statement for Pebble, as published by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, describes in detail the potential for many benefits from Pebble including employment, reduction in the cost of living, and significant local tax revenues. It further documents how local fishing permits continue to migrate to non-Alaskans and a high percentage of commercial fishing jobs are held by non-residents.”
“Those who oppose Pebble have not provided any alternative that would improve the economy of this area. These two Native Village Corporations understand that the EPA and our opposition care little about their future.”
Ron Thiessen, President and CEO of Northern Dynasty, said “We have support from local Native Village Corporations because Pebble represents the opportunity of a brighter future for these communities. This is how the Alaska model works. With its illegal veto, the EPA is robbing them of that future.”
About Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd.
Northern Dynasty is a mineral exploration and development company based in Vancouver, Canada. Northern Dynasty's principal asset, owned through its wholly owned Alaska-based U.S. subsidiary, Pebble Limited Partnership, is a 100% interest in a contiguous block of 1,840 mineral claims in Southwest Alaska, including the Pebble deposit, located 200 miles from Anchorage and 125 miles from Bristol Bay. The Pebble Partnership is the proponent of the Pebble Project.
For further details on Northern Dynasty and the Pebble Project, please visit the Company's website at www.northerndynastyminerals.com or contact Investor services at (604) 684-6365 or within North America at 1- 800-667-2114. Review public filings, which include forward looking information cautionary language and risk factor disclosure regarding the Company and the Pebble Project in Canada at www.sedarplus.ca and in the United States at www.sec.gov.
Ronald W. Thiessen
President & CEO
U.S. Media Contact:
Dan Gagnier, Gagnier Communications (646) 569-5897
Forward Looking Information and other Cautionary Factors
This release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements" under the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and under applicable provisions of Canadian provincial securities laws. All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, which address permitting, including the legal action described above, development and production for the Pebble Project are forward-looking statements. Such statements should not be in any way be construed as guarantees that the Pebble Project will secure all required government and environmental permits or regarding the ability of NDM to develop the Pebble Projects in light of the EPA’s Final Determination and the USACE’s actions described above.
NDM is also subject to the specific risks inherent in the mining business as well as general economic and business conditions. Investors should also consider the risk factors identified in the Company’s Annual Information Form for the year ended December 31, 2023, as filed on SEDAR plus and included in the Company’s annual report on Form 40-F filed by the Company with the SEC on EDGAR, and the Company’s Management Discussion and Analysis for the year ended December 31, 2023 and for the three months ended March 31, 2024 as filed on SEDAR plus and EDGAR, for a discussion of the risks that may impact our forward-looking statements.
For more information on the Company, Investors should review the Company's filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission at www.sec.gov and its home jurisdiction filings that are available at www.sedarplus.ca.
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Oleblue
1 month ago
Northern Dynasty: Files Motion to Modify its EPA Veto Complaint by Adding New Claims Against the US Army Corps of Engineers
Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd.
Mon, Jun 10, 2024, 6:45 AM EDT
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / June 10, 2024 / Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. (TSX:NDM)(NYSE American:NAK) ("Northern Dynasty" or the "Company") and 100%-owned U.S.-based subsidiary Pebble Limited Partnership ("Pebble Partnership" or "PLP") have filed a motion for leave to file an amended complaint in the federal district court in Alaska to reverse the U.S. Army Corps ("USACE") decision to deny the project a permit.
Ron Thiessen, President and CEO of Northern Dynasty, said "It is important to understand that this is not a new lawsuit. It is simply an amendment of the complaint we filed against the Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") by adding the USACE as another defendant. We think this substantially strengthens the existing case by focusing directly on the permit denial which was an underlying reason for the EPA veto."
On March 15, 2024, Northern Dynasty and PLP filed an action in federal district court in Alaska seeking to overturn EPA's veto of the Pebble Project. On June 7, 2024, both parties filed a motion to add the USACE as a defendant to that case, and to amend the complaint to claim that the denial of the Pebble permit was unlawful as clearly set out in the USACE Remand Order. And the EPA preemptive veto is based on the fabrications of the permit denial, again, as highlighted in the Remand Order.
On November 25, 2020, the USACE denied the Pebble Partnership's permit application that would have allowed it to move forward with the proposed mine development project. PLP filed an administrative appeal of that denial. In April 2023, the matter was remanded to the Anchorage office of the USACE requiring that it reconsider the permit denial due to a number of significant errors in the original denial. On April 15, 2024, the USACE refused to reconsider the denial as ordered by the Administrative Appeal Hearing Officer ("the hearing officer"), stating it had done so because the project had been vetoed by EPA.
Mr. Thiessen said, "We believe the EPA veto and the USACE permit denial were both undertaken entirely for political reasons and are contrary to the factual record, especially USACE's own environmental analysis, the Final Environmental Impact Statement ("FEIS"), which only supports granting a permit and does not support issuing a veto. We believe both decisions will be reversed by the court, which relies on the factual record to make decisions."
The Pebble Partnership's amended complaint claims that the USACE must complete the reconsideration of its permit denial as ordered by the hearing officer. In addition, the complaint alleges that the permit denial was unlawful because it reached conclusions contrary to the those determined and described in detail in the FEIS, including that the project might damage the Bristol Bay fishery when USACE's scientific review set forth in the FEIS had found just the opposite, and that there was risk of a catastrophic failure of the tailings facility when the FEIS concluded the opposite.
Mr. Thiessen continued, "These are only two examples of more than a dozen conclusions that are contradicted by the record in this matter including, at its core, the FEIS and the environmental analysis that the government itself facilitated. In fact, the hearing officer remanded the permit denial to the Anchorage Office because of these exact errors. The real absurdity of the government's position is the closed loop, circular logic, where the EPA relies on fabrications of the USACE, which have been shown to be erroneous and unsubstantiated, while the veto action of the EPA is now being used as an excuse by the USACE not to go back and fix those factually unsupported assertions. We reiterate that these decisions were politically motivated. We look forward to the litigation putting the permitting process back on course."
Mr. Thiessen concluded, "The permitting process (primarily the Environmental Policy Act and related laws and regulations) is designed to help regulators make better decisions by removing politics and emotion, instead considering the findings of the extensive environmental studies and engineering work (science and facts) required in the process. When they choose to ignore these laws, regulations, studies and engineering works, we, as a mining industry, need to use the courts to right those wrongs. Although it is unfortunate that permitting in America too often requires litigation, that's what happens when the government agencies stop being unbiased regulators and instead act as advocates for special interest groups."
About Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd.
Northern Dynasty is a mineral exploration and development company based in Vancouver, Canada. Northern Dynasty's principal asset, owned through its wholly owned Alaska-based U.S. subsidiary, Pebble Limited Partnership, is a 100% interest in a contiguous block of 1,840 mineral claims in Southwest Alaska, including the Pebble deposit, located 200 miles from Anchorage and 125 miles from Bristol Bay. The Pebble Partnership is the proponent of the Pebble Project.
For further details on Northern Dynasty and the Pebble Project, please visit the Company's website at www.northerndynastyminerals.com or contact Investor services at (604) 684-6365 or within North America at 1- 800-667-2114. Review public filings, which include forward looking information cautionary language and risk factor disclosure regarding the Company and the Pebble Project in Canada at www.sedarplus.ca and in the United States at www.sec.gov.
Ronald W. Thiessen
President & CEO
U.S. Media Contact:
Dan Gagnier, Gagnier Communications (646) 569-5897
Forward Looking Information and other Cautionary Factors
This release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements" under the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and under applicable provisions of Canadian provincial securities laws. All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, which address permitting, including the legal action described above, development and production for the Pebble Project are forward-looking statements. Such statements should not be in any way be construed as guarantees that the Pebble Project will secure all required government and environmental permits or regarding the ability of NDM to develop the Pebble Projects in light of the EPA's Final Determination and the USACE's actions described above.
NDM is also subject to the specific risks inherent in the mining business as well as general economic and business conditions. Investors should also consider the risk factors identified in the Company's Annual Information Form for the year ended December 31, 2023, as filed on SEDAR plus and included in the Company's annual report on Form 40-F filed by the Company with the SEC on EDGAR, and the Company's Management Discussion and Analysis for the year ended December 31, 2023 as filed on SEDAR plus and EDGAR, for a discussion of the risks that may impact our forward-looking statements.
For more information on the Company, Investors should review the Company's filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission at www.sec.gov and its home jurisdiction filings that are available at www.sedarplus.ca.
SOURCE: Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd.
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