Mine, conservationists reach accord

An agreement calling for independent water-quality monitoring clears the way for construction of the proposed Crown Jewel gold mine on Buckhorn Mountain in Okanogan County, conservation groups said Thursday.

Dave Kliegman, executive director of the Okanogan Highlands Alliance, said the agreement with Crown Resources Corp. ends 18 years of disputes over the project east of Oroville near Chesaw, just south of the Canadian border. Crown Resources is a subsidiary of Kinross Gold Corp. of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

The agreement calls for improved monitoring and mitigation, including third-party water quality monitoring and other environmental protections above those called for by state and federal regulatory agencies, Kliegman said.

"We thought we had a good case, but we could get more by settling than we could get in court," Kliegman said by telephone from his home in rural Okanogan County. "The company wanted it really bad now, so they were willing to give us more than we could get from federal and state regulations."

Crown Resources Vice President Lauren Roberts said the agreement means the project will move forward, with ore scheduled to begin moving from the mine in August.

"With the settlement language, it's the final step along the way of the project becoming a reality," he said by telephone from Republic. "It removes any uncertainty with respect to jobs and economic benefits in this area, which you know is a fairly depressed region."

Crown Jewel's owners have watched as gold prices climbed to near-record levels in the past year. Gold traded Thursday for about $950 an ounce.

"We'd like to have the mill running right now," Roberts conceded.

Key to the agreement is independent third-party monitoring of water quality and water levels in Buckhorn Mountain creeks, as well as other environmental and post-closure mitigation, Kliegman said.

Crown Resources will hire its own water quality expert and will pay to hire an expert for the Okanogan Highlands Alliance, according to Kliegman, Roberts and documents filed with the state Thursday.

The agreement means the conservation groups will withdraw challenges to state water rights, construction and water quality permits that were scheduled to be heard May 12 by the Environmental and Land Use Hearings Board in Olympia.

Concerns about possible environmental consequences from the mine were raised soon after the Crown Jewel was first proposed in the early 1990s.

"The public interest is protected in this settlement," Rachael Paschal Osborn, of the Center for Environmental Law and Policy in Spokane, said in a news release. "Water impacts have been a contentious issue for more than 10 years and we are glad to finally get it right."

Years after it was originally planned as an open pit gold mine, the Crown Jewel was changed to a hardrock underground mine after conservation groups objected to potential changes in streamflows.

The open pit plan was scrapped in 2001 after failing to secure state and federal operating permits.

Kinross submitted an amendment to a 1997 environmental study that reduced water consumption and added treatment to rock storage and tailings impoundment areas at the hardrock mine.

Crown Resources expects to take an average of 1,500 tons of ore from the mine daily. Ore will be trucked for processing to a Kinross mill 50 miles away near Republic.

Residents of the nearby communities of Chesaw and Oroville were split over the mine's potential economic benefits and environmental drawbacks. The project is expected to employ 120 miners and another 70 ore-hauling contractors and millworkers.

Late last year, the Okanogan Highlands Alliance, Washington Environmental Council and Center for Environmental Law and Policy appealed a number of permits issued by the Washington Department of Ecology, saying they were based on flawed studies.

Although the conservation groups still have "grave concerns" about the operation of a gold mine in rural Okanogan County, the settlement allows long-term monitoring, Kliegman said.

"Instead of a very expensive legal battle, OHA and Crown will put our resources into positive improvements for our community and the environment and independent oversight of the mine impacts," Kliegman said.