Court blocks huge gold mine project in Nevada
RENO — A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked construction of a massive gold mine project in northeast Nevada that critics say would harm the environment and ruin a mountain several tribes consider sacred.
A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed part of an earlier decision denying a preliminary injunction conservationists and tribal leaders sought to force Barrick Gold Corp. to postpone digging a 2,000-foot deep open pit at the Cortez Hills mine 250 miles east of Reno.
The 17-page ruling issued in San Francisco on Thursday said the U.S. Bureau of Land Management failed to adequately analyze the potential for the mine on Mount Tenabo (tuh-NAH’-boh) to pollute the air with mercury emissions and dry up scarce water resources.