This Article concerns dry stack tailings of the proposed Rosemont Copper Mine to be located in the Santa Rita Mountains, about thirty miles southeast of Tucson, Arizona. Because the Rosemont Copper Mine proposal includes provisions for a dry stack tailings facility, this research explores the efficiency of dry stack tailings in general, including identifying mines that have employed dry stack tailings and information regarding the success or problems caused by dry stack tailings at these mines. In addition to examining issues involved in dry stack tailings, this Article also examines Coeur Alaska, Inc.’s successfully implemented Kensington Gold Mine, located about forty miles northwest of Juneau, Alaska, in the Tongass National Forest. In 1998, the EPA issued a Record of Decision for the Kensington Mine, approving a project plan that included a dry stack tailings facility. That project ultimately did not go forward. A second proposal, which was essentially a scaled-down version of the 1998 proposal, received approval in a 2004 EPA Record of Decision. However, the dry stack tailings facility had been eliminated from the second proposal, which now relied on a liquefied tailings storage facility. Liquefied tailings storage facilities, considered the industry norm, are cheaper than dry stack tailings facilities to manage and operate. However, with regard to environmental impacts, liquefied tailings facilities are much more precarious in the long term due to abiding toxicity once cleanup and restoration are undertaken, if and when such cleanup and restoration actually takes place. This Article asks, at what point in the process were the dry stack tailings eliminated from the Kensington plan? The Article then seeks to identify reasons why. The Kensington Gold Mine is significant in relation to the Rosemont Copper Mine because of precedent that was set in litigation brought by the Alaska Earthjustice office, which opposed the Kensington mine plan that included liquefied tailings. The focus of this litigation, which was ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in favor of Coeur *31 Alaska,1 was the permit provided to the Kensington mine that allowed the company to use Lower Slate Lake, a navigable waterway teeming with aquatic wildlife, as the liquefied tailings storage facility for the mine. The litigation focused on the Earthjustice legal team’s contention that the permit violated the Clean Water Act. While the Ninth Circuit held that the permit, allowing a navigable, live, aquatic body to be used as a tailings storage facility, was a violation of the Clean Water Act, the Supreme Court held in a six-to-three decision that it did not. The comparison of these two mines, one proposed, the other implemented, while by no means conclusive in terms of the prospects for the Rosemont mine, will hopefully elucidate some potential issues with respect to the ultimate direction the Rosemont mine may take if it goes forward.

Since the advent of artificial illumination, humans have inadvertently brightened more space than they intended. Throughout the centuries, we have “lit up the night as if it were an unoccupied country, when nothing could be further from the truth." The phenomenon of light falling where it is neither wanted nor needed is known as light pollution.3 An unshielded light bulb produces excess illumination, and light spills into the sky and onto surrounding properties. It is estimated that the United States alone projects over $4.5 billion worth of excess light into the sky every year. While outdoor lighting is essential for businesses and residences alike, light pollution adversely affects the astronomy community. Arizona is home to eighteen telescopes and *1030 optic research facilities,6 which brought $252.8 million into the state in 2006. However, the cosmos is less visible now than it was several decades ago. It is not that the stars are dimmer; “rather, the Earth has become vastly brighter,” so that celestial objects are more difficult to see. The atmosphere is now less transparent and more reflective, with the stars looking washed-out as a result of sky glow. Arizona’s efforts in combatting light pollution began in in the 1970s, when astronomers working at the Kitt Peak National Observatory11 noticed a decrease in astronomical visibility of the night sky.12 This observation corresponded with the growth of the Tucson metropolitan area and its sky glow.13 Astronomers and academics persuaded local city and county officials to enact ordinances governing the brightness and intensity of external lighting. As a result of these efforts, the visibility of the sky in southern Arizona has held steady at 1970 levels. However, new state legislative actions such as permissions for electronic light-up billboards threaten to reverse this progress. In the coming decades, Arizona’s skies--and the lucrative astronomy industry that depends on them--are in danger because of the rapid and unchecked growth of the Phoenix area.

This Article concerns an ongoing struggle within the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to enact a rule pursuant to section 308 of the Clean Water Act. (CWA) requiring Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs, to disclose basic information, including: their locations; the number and type of livestock they produce; their manner of waste disposal; their management practices; and the identities of their owners or operators. That a single rulemaking would deserve such attention should not be surprising, because this one rule enables the agency to address a whole range of urgent policy problems; the EPA’s Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases Under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act finding on remand from Massachusetts v. EPA provides just one example. While a CAFO reporting rule may not seem as momentous as applying the Clean Air Act to climate change, one cannot underestimate the potential implications for the EPA’s ability to regulate an industry that, together with other forms of agricultural production, is responsible *49 for much of the nation’s water pollution. A rule grounded in section 308 and related provisions of the Clean Water Act could provide sorely lacking data on the proliferating American CAFO industry, as well as a means for the EPA to negotiate changes to facilities’ current operation methods--methods that can lead to illegal discharges of waste into the nation’s waters. A well-designed information-disclosure rule would have the potential to achieve much of what the EPA sought to accomplish in its two previously rejected CAFO-permitting programs under section 402 of the CWA. Those programs would have provided the agency with information and required CAFOs to obtain permits prior to making any discharges. An effective information disclosure rule could further the purpose Congress articulated for the Clean Water Act: to “restore and maintain the chemical, biological, and physical integrity of the Nation’s waters.

Dust storms are common global weather phenomena that typically occur in subtropical latitudes throughout the world. In Arizona, the fast-moving walls of particles are seasonal, driven by the winds from outflow boundaries of the North American monsoon thunderstorms.The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that one to three dust storms per year strike the Phoenix area, although new data from the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) indicate an increase of activity. The NCDC’s storm-event database shows that eight dust storms struck the greater Phoenix area between July and September of 2011. This dramatic departure from historical averages demands investigation into the public health effects and potential regulatory solutions surrounding the increase in dust storm events near metropolitan areas. One consequence of this increase in activity is dust storms from rural areas blowing into cities and exceeding the air quality standards set forth by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA has established national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) to address concerns about the impacts of air pollution on public health. The EPA estimates that between 1990 and 2020, the Clean Air *1002 Act will prevent over 230,000 early deaths, primarily from lessening ambient particulate matter. These standards dictate the acceptable levels of carbon monoxide, lead, nitrogen dioxides, ozone, particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5), and sulfur dioxide.8 When a city fails to maintain the ambient air quality standard for any of these categories, it may be classified as a nonattainment area and then must create a State Implementation Plan. The plan must indicate what steps a locality will take to come into compliance with the NAAQS, and it must receive EPA approval. While the EPA has authority to waive violations of the NAAQS under its exceptional events rule (EER), the agency refused Phoenix’s waiver request after dust storms in 2008 led to multiple violations of standards for particulate matter. The EPA’s position creates the potential for Maricopa County to lose over $1 billion in federal funding unless the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) can formulate a cleanup plan that receives EPA approval.12 To avoid the potential financial consequences of noncompliance, policy makers have suggested reform to streamline the process for a city to obtain an EER waiver from the EPA.