Tippets: Windy Gap Project Confirmed for Colorado River, Montanore Mine Approval Overturned, Fracking on Public Land

June 7, 2017 By: Erin Block

  • The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers has issued a decision approving the Windy Gap Firming Project, which will include building the first major new dam and diversion on the Colorado River in decades. This decision comes “at a time when the river is already severely drained and depleted due to overuse, drought, and climate change,” said Gary Wockner, Executive Director of Save The Colorado.” Via Save the Colorado.
  • U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy has overturned the approval of the Montanore Mine in the Kootenai National Forest, citing reduced stream flows for threatened bull trout and increased potential for human interactions with threatened grizzly bears. “Yesterday’s ruling underscores how wrong it is to site major industrial facilities on the doorstep of public wilderness lands that provide irreplaceable habitat for imperiled wildlife,” Earthjustice lawyer Katherine O’Brien said in a statement Wednesday. Via Idaho Statesman.
  • Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke has announced a plan to rescind updated fracking rules on public lands, issued in March of 2015. The rule “was the result of nearly five years of public hearings and expert analysis to modernize the Bureau of Land Management’s fracking regulations, which had not been updated since 1982 and did not address dangers posed by new technologies and rapid expansion in the industry.” Via Earth Justice.