Environmental Issues

摘要

The ongoing permitting saga at the Kensington Gold Mine project north of Juneau, Alaska has seen during this past summer a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the discharge permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps), the resulting lift of stay by the Ninth Circuit to allow the mine project to proceed, a written request from the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency that the Corps reexamine the permit (potentially delaying the project another eight months), and the Corps' reissu-ance of the permit. Coeur Alaska, Inc. v. Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, 129 S. Ct. 2458 (2009). This project and the related federal court decisions have spotlighted the two distinct permitting schemes governed by Federal Water Pollution Contro1 Act para. 402 and 404 (Act or CWA), 33 U.S.C. para.1342 and 1344, and the boundary separating EPA's and the Corps' jurisdictions under the Act.