Kensington mine is a gold mine

Gold mining

Gold mining is the removal of gold from the ground. There are several techniques and processes by which gold may be extracted from the earth.-History:...

 located 45 mi (72.4 km) north of Juneau

Juneau, Alaska

The City and Borough of Juneau is a unified municipality located on the Gastineau Channel in the panhandle of the U.S. state of Alaska. It has been the capital of Alaska since 1906, when the government of the then-District of Alaska was moved from Sitka as dictated by the U.S. Congress in 1900...

, Alaska

Alaska

Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...

. The mine

Mining

Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...

 is owned by Coeur Alaska Inc., a subsidiary

Subsidiary

A subsidiary company, subsidiary, or daughter company is a company that is completely or partly owned and wholly controlled by another company that owns more than half of the subsidiary's stock. The subsidiary can be a company, corporation, or limited liability company. In some cases it is a...

 company of Coeur d'Alene Mines

Coeur d'Alene Mines

Coeur d'Alene Mines is a $1.5 billion NYSE-traded corporation that operates silver and gold mining operations on four continents. Coeur d'Alene Mines owns Coeur Alaska Inc. which operates the Kensington mine near Juneau, Alaska.- External links :...

.

In 1928 the mine halted operations, and since then Coeur Alaska has attempted to resume operations. In order to resume operations Coeur Alska required a permit to dispose of tailings

Tailings

Tailings, also called mine dumps, slimes, tails, leach residue, or slickens, are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction of an ore...

 created by the milling

Mineral processing

In the field of extractive metallurgy, mineral processing, also known as mineral dressing or ore dressing, is the process of separating commercially valuable minerals from their ores.-History:...

 of ore

Ore

An ore is a type of rock that contains minerals with important elements including metals. The ores are extracted through mining; these are then refined to extract the valuable element....

 from the mine. A permit was acquired in 2005 from the United States Army Corps of Engineers

United States Army Corps of Engineers

The United States Army Corps of Engineers is a federal agency and a major Army command made up of some 38,000 civilian and military personnel, making it the world's largest public engineering, design and construction management agency...

 to dispose of the tailings in Lower Slate Lake

Lower Slate Lake

Lower Slate Lake is a lake in the State of Alaska in the Tongass National Forest. It is designated as the disposal site for the tailings from Coeur Alaska's Kensington mine....

. Following the Army Corps permitting of the tailings disposal a lawsuit was filed by a group of environmental non-governmental organization

Non-governmental organization

A non-governmental organization is a legally constituted organization created by natural or legal persons that operates independently from any government. The term originated from the United Nations , and is normally used to refer to organizations that do not form part of the government and are...

s, the Alaskan court

United States District Court for the District of Alaska

The United States District Court for the District of Alaska is the Federal district court whose jurisdiction is the state of Alaska. Offices are located in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau, Ketchikan, and Nome...

 sided with the mining company. The decision was appealed and overturned by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is a U.S. federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:* District of Alaska* District of Arizona...

. Following the successful appeal it was brought before the Supreme Court who found in favor of the company by a vote of 6-3

Coeur Alaska, Inc. v. Southeast Alaska Conservation Council

Coeur Alaska, Inc. v. Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, 07-984 , is a United States Supreme Court case that was decided in favor of Coeur Alaska's permitted right to dump mine waste in a lake. The case addressed tailings from the Kensington mine, an underground mine located in Alaska...

.