Court Seeks More Details On Mine Tailings Case

"They were already taking longer with our case than with most of the cases they've heard," Waldo said.

Tony Ebersole, a spokesman for Coeur d'Alene Mines Corp., said the company had received notice asking for additional briefs and they will respond.

A lawyer representing Coeur in January urged the Supreme Court to uphold the tailings permit even though the metal waste would kill all aquatic life. Mining company lawyer Theodore Olson said the waste was more accurately defined as fill, and that after a decade or more of mining, the lake could be restocked with no permanent harm to the environment.

Justice David Souter called that logic "Orwellian" and said the mining company and the Corps of Engineers were "defining away" the problem by calling the wastewater discharge fill.

Other justices, however, noted that an alternative to the dumping would destroy nearby wetlands and create a stack of tailings larger than the Pentagon. Justice Antonin Scalia suggested that the best place for the toxic material might be at the bottom of a lake, as long as it stayed there.

The dispute halted development of the gold mine.