Powertech Uranium Corp, a Canadian company, is suing the state of Colorado through its South Dakota subsidiary, Powertech USA Inc. The action was filed on Nov 1, 2010 in the Denver District Court. It contends that the state has now adopted rules to keep groundwater clean which are "unreasonable".
The company says in the suit that some specific rules that were adopted by the state in August, one of which requires companies to return the groundwater to its original purity after the mining process is over. This is seen as totally unreasonable by Powertech.
The defendants in the case are the Colorado Mined Land Reclamation Board and Mike King, executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources. Todd Hartman, natural resources spokesman, said that they were still examining the lawsuit.
He also said that the initial response would be to emphasize that they had an extensive stakeholder process and rule-making process that's behind those uranium-mining regulations. They felt that it was a strong process and it was critically important to be protecting the state's water supplies.
None of the lawyers associated with the case were available for comment. Citizens Against Resource Destruction, the group aligned to fight the mine plan said that the environment would be better off if the companies begin adopting the new rules.