MINING UNDER THE MICROSCOPE

Mining in today’s regulatory environment is challenging under any conditions; however, mining on federally managed lands presents another layer of complication to an already challenged industry.

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is an altruistic law with well intentioned objectives but meeting the requirement of the “hard look” of this process oriented law presents problems to both the agencies and the proponent. Assuring this “hard look” includes a multi-disciplinary approach results in multiple agencies and multiple disciplines within each agency, which is further complicated with conflicting charters of the individual agencies. Anticipate a few state vs. federal primacy issues and the plot thickens even more. Analyzing the technical aspects while managing the inevitable political issues and public involvement of the proposed project results in a juggling act of Ringling Brothers proportions.

An industry perspective will be provided about how this juggling act was managed at Smoky Canyon Mine as a 2003 proposed expansion was analyzed under NEPA and subsequently approved in 2008 Records of Decision from the Bureau of Land Management and United States Forest Service.