ELR Citation: 42 ELR 20145
No(s). 1:11cv-00161-MHW (D. Idaho Jul 19, 2012) (Williams, J.)

A district court ordered a mining company to comply with the CWA by October 31, 2012, and to pay over $2 million in penalties for CWA violations in Montezuma Creek, a tributary of the Middle Fork Boise River near Atlanta, Idaho. Environmental groups filed suit against the company for discharging water containing high levels of arsenic and iron  from a historic mining tunnel known as the "900 Level Adit." The case was bifurcated into two phases, and at the liability phase, the court determined that the company violated its NPDES permit. At issue now is the remedy. Considering the longstanding, serious, and ongoing nature of the violations, and considering the company's history of attempting to delay compliance until it had its mine up and running, an injunction may well be the only way to ensure that the company complies with the CWA in a timely fashion. But the discharges from the adit are of a continual nature and are, at least in part, result from groundwater seeps and springs that exist naturally in or near the adit. Thus, the illegal discharges cannot be halted simply by ordering the company to shut down its operations. Accordingly, the court determined that a broadly drafted injunction ordering the company to come into compliance by a certain date, but not directing the specific steps it must take to achieve compliance, is best suited to the facts presented in this litigation. It therefore entered an injunction directing the company to come into compliance with the terms of the NPDES permit by October 31, 2012, which is the date by which the company has represented it can achieve compliance in its 2012 supplemental plan of operations. The court also determined that a substantial civil penalty is necessary to have a deterrent effect on future pollution. It therefore imposed a minimum $2,000,000 penalty, to be paid on or before October 31, 2012. The court will consider whether additional penalties beyond this minimum are warranted after the period for compliance with the injunction has expired.