In a stunning reversal, the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management has denied a permit to the Battle Mountain Co. of Houston, Texas, to build an enormous cyanide-leachate open pit gold mine that would remove the top third of Buckhorn Mountain. The ruling represents an enormous victory for environmental groups in North Central Washington, which have struggled to stop the unprecedented mine proposal for eight years (ETS! #33, Apr. 22 1997).

The ruling was good (if temporary--Battle Mountain plans to appeal) news for Okanogan County and the Canadian Okanagan (Buckhorn Mountain is only a couple of miles south of the border). But the peculiar logic of the ruling may have far greater significance for large, desructive mines across the U.S. West. Regulators ruled that the mine would violate a little-noticed provision of the Mining Law of 1872. That law is generally pilloried by environmentalists as an unabashed giveaway of federal resources to mining companies--one of the Clinton Administration's very first environmental betrayals was reversing a 1992 campaign pledge to reform the law. But for the purposes of Buckhorn Mountain--and, presumably, other big mines--regulators from two departments generally completely subservient to industry used a clause that limits a mining claim to five acres for "mill sites." The open pit process at Buckhorn involves grinding some 97 million tons of mountainside into powder (which is then sifted through with cyanide to remove the gold), and exceeds the mill site requirement by a factor of 100, or some 500 acres. If the ruling serves as a precedent, it would effectively ban the controversial open pit process for new mines.

The Buckhorn mine would be extraordinarily environmentally destructive, and it's still somewhat troubling that none of the permits applied for and won thus far have considered that to be a problem. Nonetheless, lonely and vastly outspent enviro groups like the Okanogan Highlands Alliance will take the wins when they can. At minimum, Buckhorn Mountain and its surrounding forests and streams will survive human greed for a little bit longer.