Latest Pipeline Fight Centers On Mining Wastewater

Environmentalists are taking on an electric utility in a federal regulatory proceeding about the fate of mining wastewater.

The electric utility PacifiCorp is working to permanently close its Deer Creek coal mine in Utah, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. But it remains unclear what the company will do with the “millions of gallons of metals-laced water” from the mine, the report said. At the moment, the company spends half-of-a-million dollars per month pumping and ventilating the mine.

But it has a proposal for a different solution, according to the report. The company is seeking regulatory approval to construct “a 5.6-mile pipeline from a mine portal to unlined wastewater ponds” at a coal-powered generating station, the report said.

Regulatory approval remains on hold for the pipeline. In December, the U.S. Forest Service's regional office “suspended approval pending a review of concerns raised by the environmental groups,” The Salt Lake Tribune reported.

Environmentalists had pushed federal overseers to take a closer look at the risks of putting mining wastewater into the ponds, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. “HEAL's executive director, Matt Pacenza, says the utility processes its waste on the cheap instead of in accordance with industry standards,” the report said.

The electric utility has a different take on this issue. “In court filings in a related matter, PacifiCorp denies its wastewater practices ... imperil the environment, affirming that it regularly collects relevant data under the watchful eye of the state Department of Environmental Quality,” the report said.

PacifiCorp developed the pipeline proposal after a previous plan was rejected by regulators. Initially, the company wanted to “entomb” the water inside the mine, according to the report. However, “federal and state mine regulators, mindful of 2015's catastrophic Gold King Mine release, nixed [the] initial plan,” the report said.

A spill at the Gold King Mine in August 2015 left the Animas River polluted.

The New York Times reported at the time: “The Animas has been grievously polluted with toxic water spilled from one of the many abandoned mines that pockmark the region — a spill for which the EPA has claimed responsibility, saying it accidentally breached a store of chemical-laced water.”

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