Red Dog Mine near Kotzebue, Alaska violated Federal Clean Water act 618 times, fine = $0

Anchorage, Alaska

In a lawsuit filed by Kivalina, Alaska residents, a federal judge has found that the Red Dog Mine violated the Clean Water Act more than 600 times.

This comes on the heals of a ruling in Canada that a lawsuit by two members of the Colville Confederated Tribes, who contended that pollution from the company's lead and zinc smelter in Trail, B.C., flowed down the Columbia River into the United States, could go ahead.

Teck Cominco had sought to dismiss that lawsuit on the grounds that it is a Canadian company operating in Canada and not subject to U.S. environmental laws.

Several hundred other alleged pollution claims against the Red Dog Mine were denied by U.S. District Court Judge John Sedwick

General manager of the mine, John Knapp, said he was "quite pleased" with Sedwick's ruling. The judge denied two-thirds of the plaintiffs' claims, he noted.

Knapp said the company was operating under a "compliance order" authorized by the federal Environmental Protection Agency that allowed it to exceed its discharge limits set out in the permit. The terms of the order were met, he said. But a compliance order is a legal agreement and does not protect companies from citizen lawsuits, he said.

The mines operator, Teck Cominco, is accused by six plantiffs of discharging illegal amounts of pollution into a river residents use for drinking water and subsistence fishing.

Sedwick ruled that the company violated its discharge permit 618 times by pumping too much treated wastewater, into Red Dog Creek.

Plaintiffs seek more than $20 million.