IT AIN’T OVER ‘TIL IT’S OVER
NMELC FILES FOR EN BANC REVIEW IN HRI URANIUM MINING SUIT
The Law Center filed a Petition for Panel or En Banc Rehearing for our clients to the US 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on April 22nd. As you may recall, last month a 3-judge panel ruled against our appeal of a uranium mining license issued to Hydro Resources by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The Petition requests that all eleven active judges of the appellate court review our case.
One of our primary contentions in this case is that the Church Rock Section 17 proposed mine site is already heavily contaminated with radioactive waste from Cold War-era mining; this waste leaks enough radiation into the air that the area’s air quality already exceeds federal health and safety standards for radioactivity. Our Petition asks for an en banc review of the panel’s ruling that Hydro Resources is not required to include this existing radiation levels in its calculations for how much radiation its operations will produce. Under the panel’s ruling, the mining company will not have to clean up the site before it begins mining - and local residents will have to breathe radioactive air that has been contaminated twice-over.
See the filed Petition in PDF format.
Learn more about the Hydro Resources, Inc. uranium mines case
In addition, our Petition asks for a review of a panel ruling that violates precedent by deferring to a contradictory regulatory interpretation in the Final Environmental Impact Statement, which was issued nine years earlier in the same proceeding.
“Basically, we’re arguing that that the panel erroneously interpreted NRC’s regulations,“ says Eric Jantz, Staff Attorney and lead counsel, “and I think we have a good argument.“
If the en banc review is granted, the dissenting judge from the panel would hear the case again. The two judges who ruled against our appeal are not active judges at the 10th Circuit, and therefore would not re-hear the case.
BACKGROUND: In 2006, we and our clients, the Eastern Navajo Dine Against Uranium Mining and the Southwest Research and Information Center appealed the NRC’s decision to grant HRI a license to mine uranium. As you recall, this license would allow HRI to conduct uranium mining in the drinking water aquifer for 15,000 people who live in the Eastern Agency of the Navajo Nation.