Opinion ID: 175811
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The MPO Requirement

Text: If the land exchange does not occur and the selected lands remain public, Asarco will be obliged to comply with the requirements of the Mining Law. Under that law, Asarco would have to submit Mining Plans of Operations (MPOs) to the BLM before engaging in mining operations on its claims if those operations are greater than a casual use that would disturb more than five acres of land. See 43 C.F.R. §§ 3809.11, 3809.21. Casual use means activities ordinarily resulting in no or negligible disturbance of the public lands or resources, such as collection of mineral specimens using hand tools. Id. § 3809.5. It is clear from the FEIS that Asarco intends to engage in mining operations on the selected lands that would be greater than casual use, and that one or more MPOs would be required. Each MPO would have to provide a significant amount of information on Asarco's mining plans, including maps ... showing the location of exploration activities, drill sites, mining activities, processing facilities, waste rock and tailing disposal areas, support facilities, structures, buildings, and access routes; [p]reliminary or conceptual designs, cross sections, and operating plans for mining areas, processing facilities, and waste rock and tailing disposal facilities; [w]ater management plans; [r]ock characterization and handling plans; [q]uality assurance plans; [s]pill contingency plans; [p]lans for all access roads, water supply pipelines, and power or utility services; reclamation plans that address [d]rill-hole plugging, [r]egrading and reshaping, [m]ine reclamation, [r]iparian mitigation, [w]ildlife habitat rehabilitation, [t]opsoil handling, [i]solation and control of acid-forming, toxic, or deleterious materials, [r]emoval or stabilization of buildings, structures and support facilities, and [p]ost-closure management; a detailed monitoring plan to ensure compliance with environmental laws and regulations; a [r]eclamation cost estimate; and [o]perational and baseline environmental information, such as information on geology, paleontological resources, cave resources, hydrology, soils, vegetation, wildlife, air quality, cultural resources, and socioeconomic conditions in and around the project area, as the BLM may request. See id. § 3809.401. The BLM may require information beyond that submitted with an initial MPO. [I]nsofar as BLM has determined that it lacks adequate information on any relevant aspect of a plan of operations, BLM not only has the authority to require the filing of supplemental information, it has the obligation to do so. Great Basin Mine Watch, 146 I.B.L.A. 248, 256 (1998). Further, depending on the circumstances, the MPO process requires BLM to consult with other agencies. For example, the selected lands include dozens of archaeological sites, many of which, according to the FEIS, would be destroyed or severely disturbed by mining operations. Consequently, the BLM may have to perform the consultation required under the National Historical Preservation Act. See 43 C.F.R. § 3809.411(a)(3)(iii). Similarly, the BLM may have to perform the consultation required under the Endangered Species Act and/or the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. See id. The BLM may also have to consult with Native American tribes. See id. § 3809.411(a)(3)(iv). It may also have to consult with the State of Arizona to ensure that Asarcowhich in the past has violated the federal Clean Water Act at the Ray Mine Complex complies with State water quality requirements. See id. § 3809.411(a)(3)(ix). Still further, the MPO process requires the BLM to comply with NEPA. See id. § 3809.411(a)(3)(ii). NEPA requires the preparation of an EIS before approving an MPO if the approval would constitute a major Federal action[ ] significantly affecting the quality of the human environment. 42 U.S.C. § 4332(2)(C). Based on the uses that Asarco and the BLM foresee for the selected lands, as detailed in the FEIS, it is virtually certain that BLM approval of an MPO for the selected lands would constitute a major federal action. Each EIS would have to provide detailed information on the environmental impacts of Asarco's planned mining as outlined in the MPO. Finally, the BLM cannot approve an MPO unless it complies with FLPMA. Under FLPMA, the Secretary of Interior is required to take any action necessary to prevent unnecessary or undue degradation of the [public] lands. 43 U.S.C. § 1732(b). BLM regulations define unnecessary or undue degradation (UUD) to mean conditions, activities, or practices that fail to comply with the performance standards in [43 C.F.R.] § 3809.420, that fail to comply with other Federal and state laws related to environmental protection and protection of cultural resources, that are not `reasonably incident' to prospecting, mining, or processing operations as defined in 43 C.F.R. § 3715.0-5, or that [f]ail to attain a stated level of protection or reclamation required by specific laws in special status areas. 43 C.F.R. § 3809.5. FLPMA and its implementing regulations require the Secretary to take any action necessary to prevent UUD. FLPMA's requirement that the Secretary prevent UUD supplements requirements imposed by other federal laws and by state law. See id. § 3809.415 (You prevent unnecessary or undue degradation while conducting operations on public lands by ... [c]omplying with § 3809.420, as applicable; the terms and conditions of your notice or approved plan of operations; and other Federal and State laws related to environmental protection and protection of cultural resources.) (emphasis added). Prevention of UUD includes designing access routes that minimize adverse environmental impacts, § 3809.420(b)(1); disposing appropriately of tailings, dumps, deleterious materials or substances, and other waste, § 3809.420(b)(2); reclaiming disturbed areas, § 3809.420(b)(3); protecting fisheries, wildlife and plant habitat, § 3809.420(b)(7); and performing appropriate leaching operations and impoundments, § 3809.420(b)(12). UUD requirements are distinct from requirements under NEPA. A finding that there will not be significant impact [under NEPA] does not mean either that the project has been reviewed for unnecessary and undue degradation or that unnecessary or undue degradation will not occur. Kendall's Concerned Area Residents, 129 I.B.L.A. 130, 140 (1994). In Mineral Policy Center v. Norton, 292 F.Supp.2d 30 (D.D.C.2003), plaintiffs challenged newly promulgated regulations, including § 3809.420, implementing the UUD mandate of FLPMA. Plaintiffs' central contention was that the new regulations were too weak to satisfy the statutory mandate of preventing UUD. The Department of the Interior (Interior) responded by arguing that the regulations would satisfy the mandate, in significant part because of the environmental protection provided by the MPO process. The district court wrote, Interior argues that it will protect the public lands from any UUD by exercising case-by-case discretion to protect the environment through the process of: (1) approving or rejecting individual mining plans of operation.... Id. at 44. The BLM is, of course, part of Interior. It ill becomes Interior and the BLM to take the position in this litigation that the MPO process would not alter the manner of mining, and its environmental consequences, when Interior took precisely the opposite position in Mineral Policy Center.