Ending a yearlong dispute, U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled Friday that the Bureau of Land Management violated federal law when it failed to conduct proper environmental reviews and, after the fact, allowed a Clayton-based flagstone quarry to expand.
In September 2004, Hailey-based Western Watersheds Project, which owns 432 acres adjacent to the Three Rivers Stone Quarry, filed a suit challenging the Bureau of Land Management's environmental assessment, the quarry's impacts to the Salmon River corridor and to the agency's failure to allow public input on the assessment.
"The quarry lies in an environmentally sensitive area, where scenic values are given high priority," Winmill wrote. "The mining requires large pits on an exposed ridge. The quarry's size has increased to the point where it is no longer feasible to fully reclaim the site, and the reclamation that is required is not clearly defined.
"Expanding the quarry to 166 acres on an exposed ridge for 40 years without clear reclamation requirements in an area where scenic values are protected raises substantial questions as to whether that expansion will have a 'significant' effect on the environment."
The Three Rivers Stone Quarry, owned by L&W Stone, is the largest flagstone quarry in the United States. It is located near the confluence of the East Fork of the Salmon River and the Salmon River.
Winmill's decision noted that the L&W Stone Corp. took over the quarry's operations in 1996 and by 2002 had quadrupled its size. At expansion levels, it violated the existing plan of operations.
An environmental assessment was written for the quarry in 1992. Operations were limited to about 16 acres, but it was since expanded to more than 40 acres. This year, another environmental assessment was approved by the BLM that encompassed the current level of operations and allowed further expansion.
According to Advocates for the West attorney Judi Brawer, who represented Western Watersheds in the case, the result of the case reiterates that the public must be included in managing public lands.
The BLM "cannot simply rubber stamp a mining plan without protecting the irreplaceable public resources that will be permanently destroyed by the stone quarry's expansion," Brawer said.
Further complicating the matter, however, Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, is considering conveying part or all of the mine property to Custer County as part of his Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act. The congressman's draft legislation is designed to boost the economy of Custer County and designate wilderness in the White Cloud and Boulder mountains.
In an interview several weeks ago, Lindsay Slater, Simpson's chief of staff, said the conveyance would not preclude applicable environmental regulations and standards.
Assuming identical laws governing mine operations, it is unclear how the transfer of ownership from federal government to local government would affect mine operations.
Regardless, 25 full-time employees currently depend on the mine for paychecks, and local jobs in economically beleaguered Custer County are certainly an underlying issue in the case and in Simpson's proposal.
Custer County is on the cusp of the past and present. Public lands dominate the rural county, and for decades jobs have come from mining, timber harvesting, ranching and other federal-land-dependant extractive industries.
In the face of increasing environmental regulation, as well as stiff competition in global mining and timber markets, Custer County is experiencing an increasingly stagnant economy.
