Water surrounding the Buckhorn Mine must be left as clean as it was prior to mining

Background for 2015 discharge permit renewal:
Discharges at the Buckhorn Mine are regulated by the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) under the U.S. Clean Water Act. The NPDES permit must be renewed every five years. The first Buckhorn Mine NPDES permit went into effect in November 2007, there was a permit modification in June 2009, and it expired in November 2012. The WA Department of Ecology (Ecology) temporarily extended the permit due to complications stemming from significant violations for which a penalty was issued in July 2012. Crown/Kinross appealed the penalty. The second NPDES permit was issued in February 2014 and was appealed by Crown/Kinross the next day. Ecology issued a permit modification in April 2014 and again on April 1, 2015.

The penalty that Ecology issued in July 2012, was for $395,000, the largest in WA State history. Almost a year later, in June 2013, Crown/Kinross and Ecology settled the penalty for the permit violations, in order to break through the deadlock and start finding solutions to the water quality problems at the mine. The penalty settlement forgave all previous water quality violations at the mine, and agreed to a timetable for the issuance of the discharge permit and other provisions. In October 2013, after over 30 meetings with the mining company and their consultants, a draft NPDES permit was presented by Ecology to the public for comment. OHA submitted over 200 pages of comments, including a 3D visualization of the capture zone, which is posted online at: youtu.be/SPE5waXRjfU. OHA pushed for the NPDES renewal to hold the company to discharging water that is as clean as streams and groundwater were before mining began (background levels). There is no reason that higher levels of contaminants should be allowed than were originally present in local streams and groundwater.

The 15 month overdue new permit was issued on February 27, 2014. Despite verbal assurance during the penalty settlement negotiations that they would not appeal the new NPDES, Kinross submitted an appeal to the Pollution Control Hearings Board (PCHB), one day after the permit was issued.