Coalition sues EPA over water regulations

Pocatello, Idaho — Citing the release of toxic selenium by phosphate mining operations into prime trout habitat as one reason for filing its lawsuit (GM Feb. 13, 2012), the Greater Yellowstone Coalition has challenged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in U.S. District Court for allegedly weakening water pollution regulations in Idaho, which it says are among the nation’s most lenient. In its suit, filed in Pocatello on Feb. 14, the conservation group asked the court to set aside EPA’s 2011 approval of new state rules that it says permit the polluting of Idaho’s waters without required state agency and public review. Idaho state regulators recently finalized and the EPA approved the rules that the coalition says undermine the U.S. Clean Water Act’s protections by allowing actions to degrade water quality by bypassing the required reviews to determine if there was a compelling need for the actions. The lawsuit seeks to force the federal government to set aside its approvals of Idaho’s rules until they are strengthened to comply with the Clean Water Act’s more protective standards, which require no degradation of a state’s highest quality waters unless it is economically and socially needed. Idaho and federal regulators are considering at least one new open pit mine in the Blackfoot River region of Southeast Idaho’s phosphate-rich Caribou County as the number of miles of contaminated streams in the watershed increases rapidly, said the coalition. One of the most immediate threats comes from a proposed dam in the Oneida Narrows section of the Bear River, which the coalition said would inundate the river’s last free-flowing stretch and irreparably harm one of the last strongholds of the Bonneville cutthroat trout. Earthjustice attorney Laura Beaton, who represents the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, said, “Idaho’s protections for its cleanest water bodies are among the weakest in the nation. A favorable ruling will not only protect Idaho’s best waters, but ensure that EPA does not approve similarly weak regulations in other states.”