Idaho Proposed General Wastewater Permit

[r49miner]

The U.S. EPA proposes to issue a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) General Permit for small suction dredges used in Idaho placer mining operations. In 2010, the EPA published and received public comment on a previous version of a draft permit for these operations. The EPA revised the permit based on those comments and input from other stakeholders and is now asking for comment on the revised version.
Public comments on the draft permit will be accepted until June 1, 2012. The draft permit and related documents are available on the internet at http://yosemite.epa.gov/r10/water.nsf/N ... it_ssdm_10 (all documents should be posted by the end of today). You may also contact Cindi Godsey electronically at godsey.cindi@epa.gov for further information.
Some may receive a postcard with the above information in addition to this e-mail.

Proposed General Wastewater Permit for Small Suction Dredge Mining in Idaho
http://yosemite.epa.gov/r10/water.nsf/N ... it_ssdm_10

[russau]

theyre legislating us right out of the water! and still the small scale mining community ,as a whole, sits and watches for "someone else" to fix it for them! dumbfounding!!!

[DJR]

I tried that first link it's not working, can you repost.
THX
And I don't get it at all when I dredge there is nothing added to the water my dredge discharges, I suck the water out of the stream and no more then 25 feet maximum it goes back in the stream, minus some of the concentrate and hopefully some gold. But my dredge doesn't miraculously manufacture something that is added to the water that it discharges.

[gremlin]

a dredge discharges cleaner water than it picks up. how many times have you picked up lead out of the stream or river. how long has it been rolling around on the stream bed putting lead in the water.

[russau]

the wacoenviromentalists/lawyers are playing with words to acheive their end goal! and the sorry courts are allowing this (over and over)even when sceintific proof is shown tobe just the oppisite! money and greed gets you what you want!the wacoenviromentalists have proven that!

[r49miner]

all links should take you to the site now, I edited the link they gave out.

[Mythicalminer]

The Eastern Oregon Mining Association (EOMA) and the Waldo Mining District (WMD) have been in Oregon courts since 2005 trying to stop Oregon DEQ from issuing the Oregon dredge permit "in part" as a NPDES permit. We got a "win" of sorts in the Oregon Court of Appeals in Dec. 2009 in that the court ruled the 700PM permit invalid as it did not specify what discharge was actually being permitted.

The court ruled that dredges discharge sand rocks & gravel.... and water.... which were under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army Corps under Sec. 404 of the CWA.

And then the court ruled that the dischared of "dredged material" was under Army Corps permitting (404), BUT, the discharge of "turbid wastewater" was under EPA jurisdiction and Sec. 402 of the CWA. In otherwords, the Oregon Court ruled we need BOTH CWA permits....... totally ignoring a June 2009 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court which said requiring two permits for the same discharge was contrary to the regulations!

We appealed to the Oregon Supreme Court who agreed to hear our case, however before we could get into court the invalid 700PM permit expired and was replaced by ODEQ with another "700PM" permit in July 2010; and the state filed a motion to declare our case moot as the 2005 permit had expired... and so much for Truth, Justice & the American way.

As soon as the 2010 permit was issued (again in part as a NPDES permit) EOMA & WMD filed challenges against the 2010 permit.......
and we are still working our way to an actual hearing.

We believe Sec. 402 of the CWA (NPDES permitting) does not apply to the discharge from suction dredges. There is NO "addition" of anything to the waters.... in particular, there is no "discharge of "pollutants" from the outside world (such as from an onshore facility). (Yes, a dredge may create "pollution", but that is NOT a "pollutant"). There is also the question of whether the waters are "waters of the United States", or "waters of the state of Oregon (or Idaho)".

Folks, this mess over NPDES started when Alaska miners accpeted NPDES permitting in the 1990's. EPA Region 10 has since been trying to expand their jurisdiction to other states. Interesting how the EPA is a federal agency, the CWA is a federal law.... and yet it is only EPA R-10 that is demanding NPDES permitting (and so far only in OR & ID). California has NEVER had NPDES permitting! This raises the question of how can a federal law be applied selectively?

I urge all miners in Idaho to get off their butts, do the research into the CWA, and then submit your comments.... and then organize and be prepared to take EPA to court. Unfortunatly, this will cost thousands of dollars, something they rely on.

Tom Kitchar - President
Waldo Mining District

[dickb]

Quote "Yes, a dredge may create "pollution", but that is NOT a "pollutant")."

I can't understand how this makes a logical argument.

I can see a dredge creating turbidity, by distrubing the waterway bed. Unless the dredge ruptures a fuel tank on board and fuel runs into the waterway, or the cutterhead cuts a undewater gas pipeline crossing the waterway or some such incident, there is no pollutant added to the waterway. Now, if there is mercury or lead in the waterway bottom sediment, the dredge may be assisting it to migrate it down stream toward an eventual discharge in an ocean, but it is not causing the pollution. That migration is a natural occuring event in the waterway. More likely than not, during the dredging operation, more of the toxic elements in the waterway will be removed from the waterway than left in the waterway. So in effect the dredge is helping remove pollution rather than creating it.

Furthermore, the mixing of the bottom sediment, will help the bacteria digesting the harmful toxins and biogens in the bottom sediment.

The Green argument is based on scare tactics, rather than scientific fact, in my humble opinion.

Dickb

[russau]

anything to keep it tied up in the courts and makeing the laws intertwined and really complicated and can be interperted anyway they want in the feild or at their office that we pay for! we need a clean sweep of these jerks!

[digger pat]

Page 6 first paragraph of the proposed permit, basicly says that the silt comming off the sluice is the pollutant. What a crock! Then mother nature and spring run off is the biggest polluter known to the rivers. Good thing we can ignore the epa permit if it becomes a real permit.
Americanmininglawforum.org
Explains everything and blows it out of the water.