A new measure passed by Oregon’s state legislature seeks to reduce by two-thirds the number of suction-dredging permits issued in salmon-producing areas. Senate Bill 838 is on Gov. John Kitzhaber’s desk and he plans to sign it, said Tim Raphael, his communications director. Kitzhaber has until Aug. 19 to sign legislatively-approved measures into law.

The bill, widely supported by environmentalists and harshly criticized by the mining industry, was approved by the senate on July 3, followed by the house on July 7.

Suction dredge mining employs a vacuum to suck up gravel from a stream bottom. Materials from the river bottom then go through a sluice to allow miners to strain out gold and other heavy metals.

Beginning in 2014, the law would set a limit of 850 permits for suction dredge mining on Oregon’s salmon-bearing rivers, matching the level allowed in 2009. There are roughly 2,400 permits allowed this year. In addition, the law implements new restrictions on where, when and how dredging can occur.

[Daily Tidings]

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Featured image courtesy of [William Cho via Flickr]

Davis Truslow

Davis Truslow is a founding member of Law Street Media and a graduate of The George Washington University. Contact Davis at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post New Dredging Law to Reduce Permits appeared first on Law Street.

Activists are pushing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to take a drastic regulatory step that could have significant repercussions for the U.S. economy. At issue is the Pebble Mine — a natural resource project in Alaska that could yield more copper than has ever been found in one place anywhere in the world.

With more than 80 billion pounds of copper, Pebble Mine also holds other strategic metals like molybdenum and rhenium, which are essential to countless American manufacturing, high-tech and national-security applications. However, before plans have even started to be developed, the EPA seems to have responded to activist groups, such as the National Resources Defense Council. The EPA has carried out initial assessments of the site and has already taken a position to veto the project before Pebble Partnership even applied for permits.

The goal is to kill the proposal before it starts. The NRDC and other activist groups worry that once in progress the project will continue unless stopped early on, saying that, “EPA’s study (and intervention) is critically important. If left to its own devices, the state of Alaska has never said no to a large mine.”

However, some groups are speaking out against this preemptive EPA vetoing power. The Center for American Progress, for example, has come out in favor of letting the permitting review take place, even though the group has criticized the Pebble Mine project.

[See Full Article: Alaska Dispatch]

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Featured image courtesy of [emydidae via Flickr]

Davis Truslow

Davis Truslow is a founding member of Law Street Media and a graduate of The George Washington University. Contact Davis at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post EPA Trying to Stop Pebble Mine appeared first on Law Street.