MEIC Appeal Forces Revocation of Roundup Power Project Permit;  Project Derailed

MEIC Wins Zoning Lawsuit over Proposed Highwood Coal-Fired Power  Plant   

(May 2007—Read full story)
 

Ban on Cyanide Mining

MEIC is perhaps best know for the twice-won, citizen-initiated law banning cyanide heap-leach mining in Montana, which has now been upheld in the district, federal, and state Supreme courts despite Canyon Resources, Inc.’s efforts to repeal it in order to develop a massive open-pit, cyanide leach gold mine less than 800 feet from the Blackfoot River headwaters.

Initiative 137 was a response to the abysmal track record of open pit cyanide leach mining in Montana, as exemplified by cleanup fiascos  at the Golden Sunlight, Zortman/Landusky, and Kendall mines and the Montana Department of Environmental Quality's failure to adequately regulate such mines as required by state law.

In the News:

Federal judge kills gold mine's lawsuit (By JENNIFER MCKEE, Gazette State Bureau) HELENA 4/20/2006 — A federal judge has tossed out claims by a Colorado mining company that Montana's voter-passed ban on cyanide leach mining illegally robbed the company of a would-be mine near Lincoln...

Upholding Montanan's Constitutional Right to a Clean and Healthful Environment

In a landmark decision issued in October 1999, the Montana Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Montanans' constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment is a fundamental right and one that it is intended to be preventive in nature.  The sweeping decision was in response to an appeal filed by MEIC and Women's Voices for the Earth (WVE) of a 1996 decision by State district judge Jeffrey Sherlock of Helena. The original suit was filed because the Montana Department of Environmental Quality had allowed the Seven-Up Pete Joint Venture to pump, without any treatment, millions of gallons of arsenic-tainted water into the Landers Fork and Blackfoot Rivers in 1995.

Preserving the Rocky Mountain Front

As part of the Coalition to Protect the Rocky Mountain Front, MEIC helped pursuade the Secretary of Interior and Secretary of Agriculture to sign the Rocky Mountain Front mineral withdrawal in 1999, protecting 405,000 acres of national forest land along the Rocky Mountain Front from mineral exploration and development for the next twenty years.

In the News:

Front drilling ban goes to Bush (Billings Gazette, December 10, 2006) AP — A permanent ban on oil, gas and mineral exploration along Montana's Rocky Mountain Front was included in a last-minute package of tax breaks and other legislation that cleared Congress early Saturday and is headed to President Bush for his signature....