Lawyers argued before the Montana Supreme Court Friday in a case that could determine the future of a proposed mine in Central Montana.
At the heart of the latest court battle over the planned Black Butte Copper Mine is a question over what the water-law term “beneficial use” means. Under Montana law, most uses of water that benefit the user must be permitted by state environmental regulators.
Lawyers for conservation nonprofit Trout Unlimited and others argued the state was wrong when it issued a permit for only part of the total groundwater mine operator Tintina says it will pump.
Conservationists’ attorney Sean Helle said all the water the mine intends to pump — even the water it plans to hold and eventually return to the ground — benefits the mine by allowing it to access copper deposits.
“So, the narrative in this case that Tintina is somehow pumping and impounding water that it just doesn’t want to pump and impound is fundamentally false,” Helle argued. “This is essential to Tintina’s underground mining operation.”
The conservationists argue the state must scrap the mine’s current water permit and consider the mine’s entire water use.
But, mine attorney John Tietz said storing and eventually returning the pumped water means the mine isn’t “using” the water at all.
“To use an analogy, if I take my cell phone out of my pocket, and I put it in the other pocket, I can’t be saying that I ‘used’ my cell phone,” Tietz said.
This is the second case the state Supreme Court has taken up centered on the embattled mine 17 miles north of White Sulphur Springs. In a February decision, the court ruled the Montana Department of Environmental Quality correctly followed environmental laws when it authorized the mine.
