ELR Citation: ELR 20068
No(s). 06-35679 (9th Cir. Mar 16, 2007)

The court vacated the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' approval of a "diversion ditch" that would be built in furtherance of a mining company's overall plan to discharge approximately 210,000 gallons of slurry per day from its mill into Lower Slate Lake, a 23-acre lake in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. The court previously enjoined the permit for the larger project, given that the discharges would have raised the bottom of the lake by 50 feet and nearly tripled its surface area. All fish and most other life forms would have been killed as well. Despite that injunction, the Corps approved the smaller diversion project. In so doing, the court ruled that the Corps violated both "the letter and the spirit of the injunction," as the diversion ditch would be environmentally destructive. And although the court has yet to issue a final ruling with regard to the permit for the larger project, it announced that it intends to vacate that permit and rule that the Corps violated the Clean Water Act in issuing it.