Environmental Consultation

We advocate to clean up B.C.'s mining laws and practices to protect our waters, ecosystems and communities.

Buka Environmental, located in Telluride, Colorado, has been providing high-level environmental consulting services since 1998. Buka Environmental was formed as a DBA of Buka Engineering, Inc. Our mission is to provide the highest quality, understandable, and relevant information to clients on environmental issues related to water quality, geochemical processes, environmental monitoring and interpretation, and mining and oil & gas development. Our areas of specialty include evaluating the environmental effects of mining and oil & gas operations and finding solutions. We have worked in the United States and Latin America with governmental, tribal, and nonprofit clients to improve conditions related to the extractive industries.E-Tech International is a nonprofit organization based in New Mexico, USA, that provides environmental technical support to communities in less industrialized countries on the potential environmental impacts of large development projects. We work closely with partners in indigenous federations; local, state, and national governments; civil society; academia; and industrial professionals, as well as with the companies proposing or conducting the development. E-Tech is transparent in approach and becomes involved at the request of the communities and only when we feel our presence can positively influence the lives of community members.

Cascade Forest Conservancy’s (CFC) mission is to protect and sustain the forests, streams, wildlife, and communities in the heart of the Cascades. Since its founding in 1985 by volunteer forest activists, CFC (formerly known as the Gifford Pinchot Task Force) has been an ardent advocate for protecting Washington’s South Cascades. Our primary focus is to protect, restore, conserve, and study the Gifford Pinchot National Forest and adjacent lands through a combination of timber sale oversight, policy and advocacy, public engagement, aquatic and riparian restoration, collaboration, and scientific inquiry. One of our largest and long-term campaigns centers on the opposition of an open-pin mine in the Green River Valley adjacent to Mt. St. Helens, an active volcano. In addition to our Forest Service and tribal partnerships, we are working with other conservation non-profits on the upcoming revision of the Northwest Forest Plan, and we are a founding member of two local forest collaboratives—multi-stakeholder groups that meet regularly to determine where and how national forest timber plans move forward.

The Center for Science in Public Participation (CSP2) provides objective research, education and technical advice to public interest groups, non-governmental organizations, and indigenous communities on the environmental impacts of mining.

The Coalition to SAVE the Menominee River, Inc. is a non-profit 501(c)3 with our mission statement of education and advocacy as we share our scientific information of the threats of pollution and contamination of sulfide ore mining along the Menominee River, which is the boundary waters of Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The Coalition also works in conjunction with the Menominee Indian Nation as our goals to protect the Menominee River and their ancient tribal burial sites, dance rings, gardens, and the village area are the same and are in jeopardy if a mining company is allowed to proceed with their proposed mining operation.

Cook Inletkeeper is a community-based nonprofit organization that combines advocacy, education and science toward its mission to protect Alaska’s Cook Inlet watershed and the life it sustains. Inletkeeper’s monitoring and science work builds credibility with scientists and resource managers, its education and advocacy efforts enhance stewardship and citizen participation, and together, these efforts translate into Inletkeeper’s ability to effectively ensure a vibrant and healthy Cook Inlet watershed.

Our mission is to protect, restore, and promote the Coosa River and its tributaries in Alabama. We patrol the waters, educate the public, and advocate for the river and the folks who use it.

Earthworks is a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting communities and the environment from the adverse impacts of mineral and energy development while promoting sustainable solutions.Earthworks stands for clean air, water and land, healthy communities, and corporate accountability. We work for solutions that protect both the Earth’s resources and our communities.

Our mission is to ensure the public lands of the Eastern Sierra exist in an intact, healthy natural state for people and wildlife through preservation, stewardship, exploration, and education

Idaho has a long and colorful history of mining, but too many of these mines have polluted streams and contaminated landscapes. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, 40% of watersheds in the West have been contaminated by mining activity. The Idaho Conservation League works to ensure that mining activities don’t threaten human health, special places, or Idaho’s clean water. We scrutinize proposed new mines, improving those that are acceptable, and fighting those that are not in Idaho’s best interests.

INFORM monitors the hardrock mining industry across Colorado and works to educate the public about the impacts of irresponsible mining in order to protect people and the environment.

The objective of the Kamloops Area Preservation Association is to prevent open pit mining in the immediate vicinity of the city of Kamloops.

The mission of the Kipawa Lake Preservation Society is to preserve the Kipawa watershed as it is, environmentally healthy and unpolluted, through constant dialogue, education and protective initiatives that involve the local population, general public, government officials and corporations directly or indirectly related to the Kipawa watershed.As a group of concerned citizens, our goal is to bring the attention of the local, provincial and federal governments to the issues that endanger the environmental health and future of the Kipawa watershed. Currently a major issue is the mining exploration and proposed rare earth mine. In addition to the threats posed by all open pit mining operations, rare earth mining poses unique risks and has never been carried out in a safe manner. Additional information about mining and proposed projects as well as how you can help can be found on our website.

LEAD Agency is an Environmental Justice organization serving our region to educate our diverse communities to the potential human health and environmental harms of human caused contaminants in our environment. Through public education, outreach, action, involvement with appropriate government agencies and litigation we work to organize a citizen response toward cleanup and restoration of environmental harms while striving for pollution prevention and environmental sustainability. LEAD is dealing with the impacts of the Tri-State Mining District (MO, KS & OK), a 2,600 sq. mi. area of abandoned lead and zinc mines. The OK portion is the Tar Creek Superfund Site, a 47 sq. mi. Superfund Site that has contaminate the entire Ottawa County with toxic heavy metals from tailing piles used as gravel, run-off from the site and Tri-State as well as acid mine water drainage into our drink water lake.

MICWI works on advocacy and education on metallic sulfide and taconite mining issues in Wisconsin and networks with similar organizations in Wisconsin, Michigan's U.P. and Minnesota. Recent projects include the Penokee Hills Education Project (successful in halting Gogebic Taconite's proposal) and the Wolf River Action Committee tracking new metals exploration in northern Wisconsin.

MiningWatch Canada works in solidarity with Indigenous peoples and non-Indigenous communities who are dealing with potential or actual industrial mining operations that affect their lives and territories, or with the legacy of closed mines, as well as with mineworkers and former workers seeking safe working conditions and fair treatment.

The Montana Environmental Information Center is a non-partisan, non-profit environmental advocate dedicated to ensuring clean air and water for Montana's future generations.

The Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment envisions respectful, peaceful communities cherishing a healthy environment. We are rooted in the experiences of uranium-impacted communities in the Southwestern United States. We are grassroots people working to restore and protect the natural and cultural environment through respectfully promoting intercultural engagement among the communities and institutions for the benefit of all life and future generations. MASE is a network of five member groups: Red Water Pond Road Community Association and Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining both located on Navajo Nation oppose new uranium mine proposals and demand comprehensive uranium legacy cleanup. Laguna Acoma Coalition for a Safe Environment works with Pueblo peoples on uranium contamination issues. Post 71 Uranium Workers Committee advocates for compensation for all uranium workers. Bluewater Valley Downstream Alliance presses the Homestake Superfund Site to cleanup the contaminated groundwater from the former mill site and calls for the leaking uranium tailings piles to be moved.

The Nimiipuu people have always resided and subsisted on lands that included the present-day Nez Perce Reservation in north-central Idaho. Today, the Nez Perce Tribe is a federally recognized tribal nation with more than 3,500 citizens. Headquartered in Lapwai, ID, the Nez Perce Reservation spans about 770,000 acres.The tribe is governed by a nine-member elected executive committee, known as the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee, obligated to protect the health and welfare of the Nez Perce people. This means protecting and preserving treaty rights and tribal sovereignty, Nez Perce culture and the general environment of the reservation.During the 1855 treaty negotiations at Walla Walla, the Tribe insisted on retaining inherent rights. Tribal leaders negotiated retention of approximately 7.5 million acres to be protected as the Tribe’s exclusive reservation.Once gold was discovered, mass trespass and theft took place within the Tribe’s reservation. Instead of protecting the reservation from encroachment, the federal government forced the Tribe into a second treaty in 1863, which reduced the reservation to about 750,000 acres. Throughout the treaty-making process, the Nez Perce Tribe retained the inherent right to fish at usual and accustomed fishing stations, and to hunt, gather and graze livestock on open and unclaimed lands, all outside of the reservation boundary. These off-reservation rights have been upheld on numerous occasions in state court cases, citing treaty rights as the supreme law of the land.The Department of Fisheries Resources Management, with almost 200 employees, over a $20 million annual budget and a three-state work area (north-central Idaho, northeastern Oregon, and southeastern Washington) corresponding to the Nez Perce ancestral homeland, is one of the largest and most successful tribal fisheries programs in the United States. The program has been instrumental in restoring Columbia basin salmonids wisely, and in so doing, protecting and enhancing fishing rights reserved by the Tribe in its treaties with the United States. The Nez Perce Tribe is actively opposing the proposed Stibnite Gold project which would be an immense open pit gold, silver, and antimony mine that would disturb over three square miles of ground, in order to extroct between 4 to 5 million ounces of gold and 2,300 million ounces of antimony with a 413 acre tailings storage facility, oxidation and cyanidation facility, 8 miles of high voltage powerline and 18 miles of new access roads.

The Northern Alaska Environmental Center is an Alaska-based conservation organization dedicated to protecting the land, waters and wildlife of Interior and Arctic Alaska for current and future generations to use and enjoy. We understand the unique challenges of living in Alaska and seek to balance natural resource development with conserving what makes Alaska special.The Northern Center is committed to defending special places in Northern and Interior Alaska from irresponsible extraction activities, and promoting local initiatives to protect the health and way of life of people living in Fairbanks and Interior Alaska.We acknowledge that we work throughout the unceded territories of the Indigenous Peoples of Alaska; that our office is located on the traditional territories of the Lower Tanana Dené Athabascan Peoples. We honor the ancestral and ongoing land and water stewardship and place-based knowledge of the peoples of these territories.

Okanogan Highlands Alliance (OHA) is a grassroots conservation organization that has worked to protect the environment in the Okanogan Highlands of north-central Washington since 1992. Our work began on Buckhorn Mountain, where we stopped an open-pit gold mine, the “Crown Jewel Project,” in January 2000. In 2002, Crown Resources proposed an underground mine on the same ore body. OHA appealed the proposal and continued to advocate for the protection of the highlands environment. Ultimately, in 2008, the political, legal, and economic situation led to OHA’s decision to enter into negotiations with Crown/Kinross. The agreement between OHA and the company meant that an underground mine would be developed on Buckhorn, but OHA would have better access to the mine site and oversight process. The agreement also stated that OHA would receive funds that would enable us to monitor mining activities and implement mitigation projects in the Okanogan Highlands. Since then, OHA has created robust restoration and natural history education programs that serve the communities in northern Okanogan County. We partner with organizations from the local to the national level and work to engage people of all ages. OHA is 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.

Facilitate and steward the implementation of clean energy systems

Powder River Basin Resource Council was founded by ranchers and townspeople concerned about the impacts of strip mining on landscapes, communities, and freshwater aquifers. For 50 years, we have advocated for the responsible development of Wyoming’s energy resources.Using community organizing, connections with scientific, policy, and legal experts, and coalitions with other organizations, we wage effective campaigns to protect Wyoming’s air, land, and water quality and to promote sustainable agricultural practices and policies in the state.

Power Consultinghas been applying the analytical tools of Natural Resource Economics and Regional Economics to public policy issues for almost 50 years. Water, energy, and environmental issues are intertwined in ways that require new approaches to regulation. Dr. Power, a Professor of Economics at The University of Montana and Chairman of the Economics Department for 30 years, focused his research and publications on these issues. Power Consulting has stayed focused on Natural Resource Economics and the intersection between natural resources and regional economic vitality since its inception. We focus on energy, mineral, water, land, and environmental resources, their efficient use, and the ways their use affects local economic vitality and well being.

The Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada (PLAN) was founded in 1994 to bring together diverse and potentially competing organizations into one cohesive force for social and environmental justice in Nevada, and continues to do so!Since 1994, our organization has grown from 12 original founding member groups to a current membership of nearly 30 organizations! We build power with our community through strategic organizing and policy advocacy to build a strong and fair Nevada that puts people and planet first. We work on a wide array of issues, from economic and housing justice to mining in Nevada. PLAN works with directly impacted communities to lift up their voices and execute their solutions to the issues their community faces.

Resource Media is a nonprofit communications firm. We use strategic communications to broaden the base of support for policies and actions that promote healthy, just, sustainable and prosperous communities. We do this by developing and implementing communications strategies that bring more people into the conversation, break down silos among issues, and promote narratives that connect those issues with broadly-held values.

Rivers Without Borders, a project of Tides Center, raises awareness of the outstanding ecological and cultural values of the Alaska - British Columbia transboundary watersheds and promotes visionary, ecosystem-based stewardship to sustain those values. Engaging Tribes, First Nations, commercial fishermen, community leaders, scientists, government agencies, and other conservation NGOs, we are striving to keep these ecologically rich world class salmon river systems, facing massive mining development threats in their headwaters, intact , wild, and thriving.

To protect the scenic, aesthetic, recreational and environmental and wildlife values of the Santa Rita Mountains in southern Arizona through education and outreach, including protection of these mountains from degradation due to mining activities.

Grassroots, community-based organization with mission to protect and conserve ecosystem around the South Fork of the Salmon River watershed.

Core PurposeTo protect Southeast Alaska’s wild lands and clean water thereby sustaining an intact ecosystem, abundant fish and wildlife populations, and a unique Southeast Alaskan way of life.

The Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission (SEITC) is a consortium of 15 sovereign Tribal nations located in Southeast Alaska and is also a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. SEITC seeks to protect the vital and sacred rivers that sustain our communities and culture.

Uranium Watch works to protect the public heath and safety and the environment from the impacts of uranium mining and other nuclear industry operations in Utah and the Colorado Plateau. UW is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, under the fiscal sponsorship of Living Rivers, Moab, Utah. Uranium Watch educates the public, engages with state and federal regulatory agencies and provides informed public comments on proposed projects, license amendments, and regulatory changes. UW works with other organizations and individual members of the public, and welcomes requests for information or assistance.Uranium Watch’s focus is the White Mesa Uranium Mill adjacent to the lands of the White Mesa Band of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe in San Juan County, Utah, and uranium mines in Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico that provide ore to the Mill. These mines include the La Sal Mines Complex in Utah, the Pinyon Plain Mine undergoing development in Arizona, the proposed Roca Honda Mine in New Mexico, and the soon-to-be-reopened Whirlwind Mine in Colorado. Other issues include abandoned uranium mines, use of ablation technology for uranium recovery, other uranium mills in Utah that are on standby or undergoing closure, and Department of Energy funding of the uranium industry, Another Uranium Watch concerns include the Utah Association of Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) proposed small modular reactor project at Idaho National Lab, the development and deployment of other so-called “advanced” nuclear reactors, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission proposed 10 C.F.R. Part 53 regulations, which would apply to new reactor technologies. Uranium Watch is also supporting a local community in its efforts to stop a proposed in situ leach (ISL) copper recovery project in the Lower Lisbon Valley in San Juan County, Utah, a historical center of the uranium mining and milling industry.

Legal representation of Alaska Tribes on Mining-related issues

Water Watchers envisions a society where people recognize that water is inherent to all life, live in balance with nature, and build just relationships with each other. Water Watchers empowers people & communities to work in solidarity towards social justice through the unifying lens of water.The Water Watchers began as a grassroots organization founded in 2007 to oppose Nestlé Water Canada’s local water-bottling operations in Wellington County, Ontario. Today, the Water Watchers has become a unique resource to grassroots leaders on the frontlines of water protection.Over the past five years, our unique, campaign-based approach to mobilizing public support to protect water has helped communities win major victories. These campaigns bring more and more people into the movement to protect water by connecting the dots between local and systemic issues, moving communities closer toward water justice.

I am passionate about using legal pathways to ensure the mining regulatory framework adequately mitigates harms to the environment, prevents harmful impacts to marginalized communities, and implements effective monitoring and enforcement measures.

Since 1968, the Yukon Conservation Society has been advocating, educating, and conducting research on Yukon environmental issues. We pursue ecosystem well-being throughout the Yukon and beyond, recognizing that human well-being is ultimately dependent upon fully functioning healthy ecosystems. YCS researches, educates and advocates on mining activities so that the industry is more ecologically and culturally acceptable. YCS is not opposed to mining, as long as it is done in appropriate areas, uses best environmental practices, and has comprehensive and adequately funded closure plans.YCS regularly pushes for better and stronger mining legislation and regulation; participates in environmental assessments and licensing processes (of both exploration and mine projects) to ensure the highest possible environmental standards are applied; monitors abandoned mine cleanups to ensure they get done; acts as a watchdog for current and ongoing mining operations to make sure they meet their licensing and regulatory obligations; and educates the general public and other parties (i.e. schools, academics, journalists) on key mining issues.