Laserfiche WebLink
rrom: jx¢nanv ornm w. rvu. ..m~.....~..~ .....~. ~..._..__ ....~. _..___.... <br />• ,, <br />Mr. Lany Shults <br />April 15, 1999 <br />Page 4 <br />development director to provide me with a copy. However, ]have noway of ascertaining <br />whether the DEIS relies in part of wfiole on this plan or another plan. <br />The fact that this project proponent bas such an obsession with secrecy and <br />continues to defend its "anomalous" supporting data makes me skeptical about other <br />representations being made by American Soda. I carr understand their wanting to protect <br />trade secrets and other such information from their competitors, but you certainly can not <br />justify the withholding of details about compliance with state and federal enviromnental <br />laws. The condition ofthe water in the Lower Aquifer is not a trade secret nor should <br />their monitoring plans be considered trade secrets. <br />74rere is no basis whatsoever for withhoding this information from the public, <br />and the BLM should not undemilnes public confidence in the project by acquiescing to <br />requests to withhold baseline data, information on its collection or proposed monitoring <br />and mitigation plans simply because American Soda asserts either or both are <br />confidential or proprietary. Such acquiescence compromises the ability ofthe BLM to <br />engage in fair and open decision making that complies with NEPA and other federal <br />laws. <br />I do believe your owe regulations do not allow this secrecy and require the <br />opposite. 43 C.F.R sec. 3590.1 provides that information may be held confidential only <br />if marked confidential by the project applicant and only if segegated into a separate <br />volume. I assume American Soda marked its entire Mine Plan as confidential, since you <br />have declined to give me a copy ofthe Mine Plan or any part of it. 'Ibis refusal makes it <br />impossible forme and others from the public to see the Plan and to evaluate w7retber the <br />project may have significant or unacceptable impacts on the environment. Marking the <br />entire mine plan as confidential is fundamentally illegal, does not comply with the <br />BLM's own regulation requiring the segregation and marking of legitimately confidential <br />material, and demonstrates bad faith by American Soda, who apparently expects its <br />project to be approved without subjecting its details to the scrutiny of the public. I will <br />do everything in my power to ensure that this project does not get approved until the <br />public has been fairly included in the process. <br />Perhaps more fundamentally, the applicant is trying to have to both ways with its <br />mining plans: at Monday's hearing the applicant made numerous assertions about the <br />mining operation including the productivity ofthe 450 wells expected to generate $675 <br />million over the life of the project. The use of the mining plan's details to persuade the <br />public ofthe value ofthe operation without allowing an evaluation of its impacts is <br />unfair. <br />13v the way, your regulation does not contain any substantive standard for <br />granting confidentiality. Someone who is not familiaz with federal open government <br />laws might read the BLM rule to mean 11ta1 the BLM has the authority to w~thhdd any <br />document a project proponent marks as confidential. Of course, as you know, nothing <br />could be further from the truth. The Freedom of Information Act governs whether <br />