Atlanta Gold, a Canadian-owned mining company, has been poking around in the mountains near Atlanta, Idaho for years. One of its adits, or entrances to mines, has been leaking arsenic and iron into Montezuma Creek, a tributary of the Middle Fork of the Boise River, in violation of its Clean Water Act permit. After giving fair warning, we are now suing to stop this pollution of our water.
In 2005, after a prior lawsuit, Atlanta Gold promised to get its heavy metal pollutants under control. Now it is 2011 and the problem has not been fixed. Illegal levels of these metals are polluting the Boise River watershed and harming the habitat of species like bull trout.
High levels of arsenic can cause short-term effects such as skin, lung, stomach and bladder irritations and long-term exposure is linked to cancer of the skin, lungs, kidneys, nasal passages, liver and prostate. High iron levels are linked to neurological damage and Alzheimer's disease. These contaminants also affect plants and fish. Advocates for the West has teamed up with ICL and the Northwest Environmental Defense Center to take Atlanta Gold to task.
Read the complaint from our case page.
Read the AP story by clicking arsenic photo above.
Photo credits from top:
1) Settling pond, courtesy of ICL
2) AP story link
3) John Robison is Iron Man, courtesy of ICL.
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