Victory In Court 8/23
In September 2021, the Inyo National Forest gave Canadian Company Kore Mining the green light to begin exploratory drilling at Hot Creek. This permit was granted under the Categorical Exclusion process, which provides for the lowest possible environmental review. Several organizations, including the Sierra Club Range of Light Group, Friends of the Inyo, Center for Biological Diversity, and Western Watersheds Project sued KORE Mining and the US Forest Service on the grounds that the USFS had improperly granted the permits, ignoring the significant potential environmental impacts to Long Valley. These impacts would not just be to the land, but to wildlife, including a dwindling Bi-State Sage Grouse population, as well as the endangered Owens Tui Chub fish. Further, the permit improperly failed to provide that all drilling and remediation work be completed within one year, which is required for projects operating under a Categorical Exclusion.
After the lower district court ruled in favor of KORE and the USFS in 2022, the plaintiff organizations appealed the ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and a hearing was held on August 24th, 2023.
As we know, KORE had announced to the public that they would be arriving as soon as September 1st, 2023. Because of the immediacy of KORE's arrival, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals made a prompt decision just one day after the hearing.
On August 25th, the court reversed the previous district court's decision and overturned the U.S. Forest Service's approval of exploratory drilling at Hot Creek! This decision invalidates the USFS use of a categorical exclusion that concluded no harm would be done by the project. While this was a short immediate ruling, the court will be publishing a longer opinion later with greater details and instruction for the USFS and KORE. It is important to remember that this is a temporary win; while KORE will not be showing up this September for exploratory drilling, Hot Creek is still under threat from the mining company and long term protection is still needed.
