Tuesday, July 1, 2003 | 9:22 a.m.
Nevada's robust mining industry for the fourth consecutive year put the state No. 1 in the nation in the release of toxic substances, the federal Environmental Protection Agency said Monday.
The EPA's annual Toxic Release Inventory list is an annual measure of toxic chemical releases, transfers and waste generated by industries of all kinds in the United States.
In Nevada 103 facilities discharged more than 781 million pounds of toxic chemicals into the air, land and water in 2001, the latest year reviewed.
Almost half of that amount came from a single source, Barrick Goldstrike Mines in Elko, the report said.
But comparing the EPA's 2000 inventory with the latest report shows that Nevada's latest toxic releases have dropped from more than 1 billion pounds of toxic releases.
Nevada vaulted into the top spot in the latest report for toxic releases when every gram of mercury, lead, arsenic and every potentially toxic element or compound pulled from the ground in a mining operation was reported.
Nevada Mining Association President Russ Fields said that toxic materials are common in rock in low concentrations.
Much of such materials are bound in rock and will never reach the environment, he said. They pose no risk to the public, Fields said.
The EPA tries to strike a balance between mining and environmentalism.
The other two Nevada sites contributing the most releases were Newmont Mining Corp.'s Carlin South Area and Twin Creeks Mine in Golconda.
The Mineral Policy Center in Washington, D.C., wasn't surprised that mining metals and minerals such as gold, silver and copper produced more toxic waste than any other industry in Nevada or the country.
"For as long as the hardrock mining industry has reported its toxic output, it's been the worst polluter in the country," said Steve D'Esposito of Mineral Policy Center.
Nevada produced more than $2.2 billion in gold last year, leading U.S. production.
A recent court decision, Barrick Goldstrike Mines Inc. v. Whitman, may prevent small releases of toxins from mining from being reported in the future.
In April 2003 the District of Columbia's District Court ruled that hardrock mining companies would not be required to report toxic chemicals making up less than 1 percent of waste rock under a rule known as the de minimus rule.
Although the EPA's inventory does not lead to penalties for companies, the reports allow communities to learn about the poisons released in their area, Whitney Painter of the Mineral Policy Center said.
"People have a right to know what toxic materials are in their area," rancher Alan Shammel, who lives downstream of a Montana gold mine, said in a statement from the policy center. "Eight million gallons of water per year are polluted by the waste rock pile above our ranch. My family used that water for our livestock for three generations. Now it's polluted."
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