CSERC lawsuit leads Mine to pull its approval to bury 27 acres of oaks
For over a year, CSERC staff repeatedly told Tuolumne County planners and supervisors that it was illegal to bury 27 acres of oak woodland under a giant mound of mining waste without even requiring an EIR to consider other alternatives. We also pointed to state law that specified that planting of oak seedlings could only count for a maximum of 50% of mitigation. Yet Tuolumne County approved planting as 100% of mitigation, and also claimed that wiping out 27 acres of woodland would not be a significant impact.
As we had warned, when the County approved the permit for Blue Mountain Minerals, we partnered with the outstanding law firm Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger to sue the County.
The response from the Mine, County supervisors, and pro-development interests was an outcry of criticism. Instead of the admitting that the County had failed to abide by State law, the supervisors complained about the law and denounced CSERC and other citizen activists. Online blogs and discussion sites filled with anti-environmental rhetoric. We received nasty phone messages and e-mails denouncing us.
Blue Mountain Minerals pit
Nevertheless, when invited by the Mine’s CEO to come talk directly, John (CSERC’s executive director) willingly visited the mine (shown in the photo above) and spent more than two hours touring the mine site and sharing CSERC suggestions for how to avoid the need for either the lawsuit or an EIR. John pointed out that if the Mine simply chose to pile mining waste higher on the Mine’s current, already degraded waste site, that could be the solution for years without any need to wipe out the undisturbed 27-acre woodland. Instead, despite being thanked by the CEO for the visit, John/CSERC were denounced by the CEO a few days later when the Mine publicly acknowledged it would ask the County to rescind its project approval. Rather than face the strong legal case that favored CSERC, the Mine chose to pay for the legally required EIR that will analyze alternatives that might spare the 27 acres from being buried.
At the County board session that was held to rescind the project approval, verbal attacks on CSERC by the supervisors continued. The building industry used CSERC’s lawsuit as a reason to launch printed attacks blaming CSERC for the woes of the industry. No one at the County acknowledged that this is the second time in three years that the supervisors failed to follow the law with a mining project. County politicians and development interests prefer to blame the situation on environmentalists – claiming CSERC and others are intent on stopping all projects. In contrast to the rhetoric, CSERC and other local conservation groups gladly met last year with a developer and gave general support to her plans for a giant new development project at the old Big Oak Flat scar site along Highway 120. But because the County and the local building industry didn’t provide enough support, the developer ended up dropping tens of millions of dollars of development plans and significantly scaled down the project. If the builders and politicians put their time into supporting appropriately located projects that follow the law instead of attacking CSERC, they might actually boost demand for new constuction. They could also avoid lawsuits.