Barrick Gold defeats EPA in toxic waste court case

Gary Park, Petroleum News Calgary correspondent

Barrick Gold has won a court challenge to have itself removed from a “worst polluters list” published by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

A 1999 document alleged Barrick’s Goldstrike mine in Nevada produced 398 million pounds of toxic material the previous year.

Barrick fought back, saying the EPA unfairly included non-treated waste rock, which it moved out of the way to access gold deposits, in the calculations.

Judge Penfield Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said April 9 the EPA went too far when it included waste rock in the definition of toxic waste.

The verdict also was welcomed by another Canadian company, Placer Dome, which the EPA accused of producing 106 million pounds of waste in 1998 at three U.S. mines.