ELR Citation: 50 ELR 20126
No(s). CV-13-8045-PCT-DGC (D. Ariz. May 22, 2020) (Campbell, J.)

A district court granted summary judgment for the Forest Service in a challenge against its determination that a mining company had "valid existing rights" (VER) at a uranium mine in the Kaibab National Forest when DOI withdrew public lands around the Grand Canyon from new mining claims. A Native American tribe and environmental groups argued the VER determination was invalid because the Forest Service failed to consider all relevant costs—for monitoring radiation, surface water, and groundwater; for wildlife conservation; and sunken costs—in its profitability analysis of the mine, and sought to have the determination set aside. The court could not find that the VER determination included all environmental monitoring and wildlife conservation costs, but concluded that even if those costs were not considered plaintiffs failed to show the omission was harmful given the mine's more than $29 million in conservatively estimated profits. It further found that the exclusion of sunk costs was not error, and that even if it was plaintiffs failed to show that it was harmful. It therefore granted summary judgment for the Forest Service.