A provision in Montana’s constitution guaranteeing
residents a “clean and healthful environment” has as much bite as
bark, thanks to a recent Montana Supreme Court ruling. In October,
the court unanimously agreed that that the constitution protects
the state’s resources from actual, proven damage, and from
potential harm as well.
“Our constitution does
not require that dead fish float on the surface of our state’s
rivers and streams before its farsighted environmental protections
can be invoked,” wrote Justice Terry
Trieweiler.
It was the court’s first chance to
interpret the provision, which was enacted when the state re-wrote
its constitution in 1972. The opportunity arose from a lawsuit
filed by conservation groups against the state for permitting the
Seven Up Pete Joint Venture gold-mining project to pump water with
high levels of arsenic into the Blackfoot
River.
For now, the mining case is back in
district court, where the judge must decide if the law exempting
“pump-tests’ from environmental review is
unconstitutional.
But the decision itself leaves
many questions unanswered. “It’s a first step,” says John North,
attorney with the Department of Environmental Quality. “The court
indicated that a “clean and healthful environment” is a pretty high
standard and that’s about all we have here.”
*Andrea Barnett
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Court enforces a healthy environment.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
