yep BILLINGS – Hecla Mining Co. sued Montana environmental regulators on Friday for deeming the company and its president as “bad actors” who should pay for cleanups at several polluted sites before pursuing two new mines.
Attorneys for three Hecla subsidiaries described the state’s allegation that the company is responsible for ongoing pollution from several defunct mines as frivolous.
Coeur d’Alene-based Hecla had no direct involvement in the polluted mines at issue.
But its president, Phillips Baker Jr., who also chairs the National Mining Association, was formerly the chief financial officer for Pegasus Mining Co., of Spokane.
Pegasus’ 1998 bankruptcy left state and federal agencies on the hook for pollution cleanups at its Montana mines, including the Zortman-Landusky gold mine on the edge of the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation. Ongoing cleanup work at the shuttered sites has cost about an estimated $100 million to date, and bonds put up by Pegasus covered only a portion of the bill.