Spring 1999 Bulletin

Amigos Bravos Sues EPA for Clean Water On March 24, 1999, Amigos Bravos and New Mexico Citizens for Clean Air and Water (NMCCAW) brought suit against the US Environmental Protection Agency to demand that the agency bring the Molycorp molybdenum mine near Questa, New Mexico into compliance with federal law and stop the mine's toxic emissions into the Red River, a major tributary of the Río Grande. The EPA itself documented Molycorp's ongoing pollution of the Red River, in a report it released on February 13, 1998. The lawsuit, filed by the Western Environmental Law Center on behalf of Amigos Bravos and NMCCAW, alleges that EPA is shirking its regulatory duty under the Clean Water Act. The suit asks that the court order EPA to either prohibit the mine's illegal discharge or ensure Molycorp's compliance with federal law by issuing an NPDES permit to regulate the mine's pollution and ensure that they remain within legal and environmentally-sound limits. Despite the EPA's own evidence, the agency has yet to take action to halt Molycorp's pollution. On August 4, 1998, Amigos Bravos gave the EPA 60-day notice of our intent to sue. The EPA has failed to address the mine's violations, leaving us no recourse but to file suit. The Molycorp molybdenum mine, just above Questa, New Mexico, is the largest hard rock mine in the Río Grande watershed and has been leaching acid and heavy metals-including lead, cadmium, and aluminum-into local ground water and the Red River for over 30 years with no regulation by the EPA, the federal agency responsible for protecting our environment and waters. According to a 1994 report of the New Mexico Water Quality Control Commission, eight miles of the Red River-once a blue ribbon trout fishery-is biologically dead today because of the Molycorp mine's discharge of toxic pollutants into the river. "This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of Molycorp's pollution of the Red River," says Amigos Bravos' Projects Director, Ernie Atencio. "It is still early in the acid-generation cycle of this kind of acid-mine drainage. Every year we are seeing new seeps appear along the Red River, pouring in heavy concentrations of aluminum, cadmium, copper, chromium, cobalt, iron, molybdenum, manganese, nickel, zinc, and lead. We are sure to see more impacts over the years if Molycorp doesn't start cleaning up now." For years, Amigos Bravos and community activists in Questa have tried to get Molycorp to stop its pollution. Despite legal protection of New Mexico's waterways, the laws are enforced poorly by state and federal agencies. Some 2,900 river miles are threatened or impaired while 150,000 lake acres do not meet water quality standards. Our suit against EPA is just one of many actions we are taking in the coming months as part of our Molycorp Watch Initiative, which works to hold corporate polluters accountable and ensure that Unocal-the global oil corporation that owns Molycorp-does not profit at the expense of the region's people and rivers.

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