The company that runs the inactive Rock Creek gold mine near Nome has agreed to pay nearly $900,000 to federal regulators for the mine's storm-water discharge violations two summers ago.
It's the second largest-ever penalty involving storm-water violations at a construction site regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's northwest regional office, federal regulators said Tuesday.
The mine operator, Alaska Gold Corp. said Tuesday it will pay the EPA $883,628 to settle the federal Clean Water Act violations. But first, the settlement undergoes a 30-day public-comment period; a federal court in Anchorage must approve it too.
Alaska Gold previously had been warned and fined by state and federal regulators for the storm-water problems at Rock Creek: state regulators first noted violations at the mine's construction site in 2007, EPA officials said.
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Rock Creek began pouring gold in October 2008 but shut down the next month, saying it was unable to meet regulators' environmental mandates, among other problems.
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