A Justice Department lawsuit filed in California doesn’t accuse anyone of fraud or a cover-up. It asks a simpler, older question: when a gold mine that opened in the 1890s leaves behind arsenic-laced tailings, who pays to clean it up.
TL;DR
- On September 9, 2026, the Department of Justice sued Goldcorp USA, Inc., Goldcorp, Inc., Glamis Rand Mining Company, New Verde Mines, LLC, and Yellow Aster Mining and Milling Company on behalf of the Bureau of Land Management.
- The suit seeks to recover the federal government’s cleanup costs at the Rand Historic Mining Complex in California’s Mojave Desert, a gold and silver mining district dating to the 1890s.
- At the center of the case is the Descarga tailings impoundment, where arsenic-contaminated waste from mining operations in the 1930s was deposited.
- BLM sampling found arsenic concentrations exceeding EPA regional screening levels, and the agency has spent close to two decades on assessment and remediation.
- The claim is brought under CERCLA, the federal Superfund law, which imposes strict, joint-and-several liability on current and former site owners and operators regardless of who actually caused the contamination.
- Several of the defendants, including entities now under Newmont Corporation, are the same companies that have spent over two decades conducting reclamation work at the site.
- The complaint does not allege fraud, concealment, or criminal conduct. It is a cost-recovery and liability action.
This be a story about who inherits the bill when a mining claim changes hands five times across 130 years.
Transparency Notice
This article is based on the civil complaint United States of America v. Goldcorp USA, Inc., et al., filed by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Environmental Enforcement Section on behalf of the Bureau of Land Management in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California on September 9, 2026 (Case No. 1:26-cv-07260-JLT-HBK), along with the accompanying civil cover sheet.
A complaint contains the government’s allegations and legal theories. It is not a finding of fact, fault, or liability, and the defendants have not yet had the opportunity to respond in court. CERCLA cost-recovery actions like this one are governed by strict liability: a party can be found responsible for cleanup costs simply by having owned or operated a contaminated site, independent of whether it caused the contamination or acted improperly. Nothing in the complaint alleges that any defendant acted fraudulently, concealed information, or violated the law intentionally.
The Facts
The Rand Historic Mining Complex sits in California’s Mojave Desert, centered on the towns of Randsburg, Red Mountain, and Johannesburg. Gold and silver mining there dates to the 1890s, and the site today includes abandoned mineshafts, tailings impoundments, waste rock piles, and the physical ruins of more than a century of extraction.
BLM has divided the site into three Operable Units for cleanup purposes: the Kelly Silver Mine near Red Mountain, the Yellow Aster Mine near Randsburg, and the Marigold Mine near Johannesburg. The complaint’s core allegations concern the Yellow Aster Mine unit, and specifically an impoundment there known as the Descarga.
Yellow Aster Mining and Milling Company held mining claims for the Yellow Aster Mine and operated it between 1895 and 1933. According to the complaint, it was a different company, Anglo American Mining Corporation, operating from 1933 to 1939, that disposed of arsenic-laden waste tailings into what became the Descarga impoundment. YAMM was not the operator that deposited the contaminated tailings, but the complaint alleges it held the underlying unpatented placer mining claims at the Descarga, including during the period the tailings were dumped, and continuously from 1915 until 2019.
Ownership and operational control of the Descarga passed through several corporate hands over the following decades: a Glamis Gold subsidiary called Chemgold in the 1980s, then Rand Mining Company (later Glamis Rand Mining Company) starting in 1989, which processed material there until 2003. Glamis Gold’s mining assets were absorbed into Goldcorp, Inc. in 2006. In 2019, Newmont Mining Corporation merged with Goldcorp to form what is now Newmont Corporation, which subsequently created New Verde Mines, LLC to take over ongoing reclamation work at the Descarga.
A Chronology Spanning Five Corporate Owners
Yellow Aster Mining and Milling Company operates the Yellow Aster Mine and holds the underlying mining claims.
Anglo American Mining Corporation, Ltd. mines the site and deposits arsenic-contaminated tailings into what becomes the Descarga impoundment, per the complaint.
Chemgold, Inc., a Glamis Gold subsidiary, leases part of the Descarga from YAMM for chemical heap-leach processing.
Rand Mining Company, later Glamis Rand Mining Company, leases claims from YAMM and processes material at the Descarga until 2003, then shifts to reclamation work.
BLM conducts a preliminary assessment; sampling shows arsenic concentrations exceeding EPA regional screening levels.
BLM issues a Record of Decision selecting a remedy for the Yellow Aster unit, including regrading, capping, fencing, dust control, and land-use restrictions.
The selected remedial action begins.
Newmont Mining Corporation merges with Goldcorp, Inc.; the combined company is later renamed Newmont Corporation.
Following a five-year effectiveness review, BLM determines the original remedy was insufficient and calls for a synthetic liner cap over the Descarga.
The Department of Justice files suit seeking to recover BLM’s response costs from the five named defendants.
From the Complaint
BLM’s sampling found arsenic at the site at concentrations that exceeded EPA regional screening levels, documenting a release and a continuing threat of further release.
Complaint, ¶ 26
The government is asking the court to declare the defendants liable not only for costs already spent, but for whatever cleanup costs BLM incurs at the site in the future.
Complaint, ¶ 48; Prayer for Relief ¶ 2
What the Government Is Asking For
The complaint brings three claims. The first seeks cost recovery under CERCLA Section 107 against Yellow Aster Mining and Milling Company as the long-term claim holder at the Descarga. The second seeks cost recovery against the Goldcorp-linked entities, Glamis Rand Mining Company, Goldcorp USA, Inc., Goldcorp, Inc., and New Verde Mines, LLC, as operators of the facility. The third asks the court for a declaratory judgment that would bind the defendants to pay for further response costs the government incurs at the site going forward, without having to relitigate liability each time.
The civil cover sheet notes that the government is not demanding a specific dollar figure in the complaint itself, is not seeking class-action status, and has not requested a jury trial. The relief sought is judgment for costs already incurred, plus interest, the declaratory judgment on future costs, and the government’s costs of bringing the action.
Under CERCLA, the question a court has to answer isn’t who acted badly. It’s who was standing on the property when the liability attached, and how many corporate mergers later, someone still is.
What a Legitimate Fix Looks Like
The following recommendations are the publication’s own analysis, grounded in the failure modes the complaint documents: a contamination event from the 1930s, a remedy in 2015 that had to be revised by 2024, and a chain of corporate successors now being asked to sort out who owes what. None of this is contained in the government’s filing itself.
Regulatory Track
- Shorten the gap between five-year remedy reviews at legacy mining sites, rather than waiting a full review cycle to discover a cap is inadequate.
- Require public, plain-language updates when a remedy is revised, such as the 2024 shift from a rock cap to a synthetic liner, so nearby residents understand what changed and why.
- Standardize residential-yard sampling protocols near historic tailings and waste rock piles across BLM districts.
Legislative Track
- Clarify successor liability rules for mining claims that have changed corporate hands multiple times since the 19th century, to reduce years of litigation over who is an “owner” or “operator” under CERCLA.
- Expand dedicated federal funding for abandoned and legacy mine cleanup, so cost-recovery litigation is not the primary mechanism for financing remediation at sites like this one.
Corporate Governance Track
- Companies acquiring mining assets with legacy environmental liabilities, as Newmont did through its 2019 merger with Goldcorp, could disclose inherited CERCLA exposure more explicitly in merger filings.
- Continue and publicly document reclamation work already underway, since several of the named defendants have been performing grading, capping, and revegetation work at the Descarga for over two decades.
What Now?
The source document for this investigation is attached below.
