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Zinc producer settles suit over Alaskan mine waste

04/09/08

By Yereth Rosen

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Zinc producer Teck Cominco Ltd has agreed to pay up to $120 million for a wastewater pipeline to settle a lawsuit by Inupiat Eskimo villagers who claimed mine pollution was fouling their drinking water and the fish that are a staple of their diet.

The settlement, terms of which were filed in U.S. District Court in Anchorage on Wednesday, ensures that waste from the Red Dog mine in Alaska will bypass the river that is the water and food source for residents of the village of Kivalina, said Luke Cole, the attorney representing the villagers.

"The settlement calls for construction of a pipeline from the mine site to the ocean, so that the mine will not be discharging into the Wulik River or tributaries of the Wulik River," said Cole, who is lead attorney for the San Francisco-based Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment.

The pipeline will run about 50 miles, according to the settlement. Teck Cominco has estimated the project will cost less than $120 million, Cole said, adding that he did not know the precise cost.

The settlement calls for the company to pay plaintiff attorney fees of $2.35 million and to pay a civil penalty of $8 million to $20 million if the pipeline is not built, Cole said. The settlement also commits Teck Cominco to pay penalties of $625 to $12,500 for any future violations of wastewater-discharge limits.

The Red Dog Mine is operated by Teck Cominco on land owned by NANA Corp, the regional corporation for Northwest Alaska's Inupiat people. The mine is an economic mainstay for the region. Kivalina, a Chukchi Sea village with 400 residents, is the closest community to the mine.

The 2004 lawsuit alleged that the Red Dog Mine had thousands of Clean Water Act violations in the late 1990s. U.S. District Court Judge John Sedwick eventually whittled that number to 824 violations for which Teck Cominco could be liable, and a trial on an additional 2,200 alleged violations was set to start in May.

The parties reached a tentative settlement just before the trial was to have started, he said, adding that it took a few months to work out details of the settlement.

Attorneys for Vancouver, British Columbia-based Teck Cominco were not immediately available for comment.

The settlement agreement is subject to a 45-day public comment period, Cole said.

(Reporting by Yereth Rosen, editing by Richard Chang)

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