In a country where the mining laws from the last century are still in force, environmental advocacy group American Rivers reports on how changes are long overdue!

American Rivers National Office
1025 Vermont Ave., N.W. Suite 720
Washington, DC  20005
Phone: 202-347-7550
Fax: 202-347-9240
Email: amrivers@amrivers.org

Miles of rivers and streams contaminated by mining in the U.S.: 

12,000 MILES!!  (source: Mineral Policy Center)

 The 1872 Mining Law: needed reforms are long overdue

Click here to read a fact sheet from the Mineral Policy Center

The 1872 Mining Law was designed to encourage migration to the West. In 1872, pick axes, pans, and shovels were the tools used in hardrock mining. Today's mines are huge in scale, require complex feats of engineering, and use heavy equipment and chemical processes such as cyanide leaching to extract ore. Technology has changed mining to a highly mechanized process which has vastly escalated mining's impact on the land and environment.

In spite of all these changes in the mining industry, the 1872 Mining Law has never been modified. The law is being exploited to provide mining companies with unfair advantages that aren't offered to other industries. Environmental, community, and historical values that merit protection are not given equal consideration when establishing a mine under the existing law.

Costs to the U.S. taxpayer

The Mining Law of 1872 continues to provide mining corporations billions of dollars of public assets for the century-old price of $5.00 an acre. The holder of a claim that proves to contain a valuable mineral may "patent" or purchase title to the land and minerals for $5.00 an acre or less. The title to the land can then be resold to someone else at a great profit to the patent holder. Mine operators do not pay royalties to the U.S. Government on ores removed.

Approximately $2-3 billion worth of minerals are extracted from public lands each year. According to the Mineral Policy Center, the Mining Law of 1872 has led to the taking of $245 billion worth of minerals at giveaway prices since the law's passage. One company recently bought the rights to extract $68 million worth of gold on 118 acres for $590 and no royalties.

Cleanup costs and reclamation

The Mining Law does not provide rules and regulations for environmental standards during the mining process or for reclaiming land after it has been mined. Currently, state laws and regulatory agencies monitor unsafe mining practices and enforce compliance. States are also responsible for requiring bonds and reclamation. Often, state mining laws are inadequate and difficult to enforce.

Key changes needs to reform the Mining Law of 1872

* Set standards for regulating water quality

* Government power to identify areas that are unsustainable for mining activity because of their environmental value

* Fair compensation to the taxpayer on the value of minerals extracted from public lands

* Establish enforceable environmental standards for mining operations

* Set reclamation standards upon completion of mining and require a bond to insure that requirements are met

* Require systems to prevent acid drainage and leaching of toxic metals from abandoned piles of mine and waste

* Stop the land giveaways under the patenting system

* Establish long term monitoring programs at all mine sites after completion of mining and closure of the operation including surface and ground water testing and a plan for corrective action if acid or toxic leakage develops

 

Recent mining pollution history and facts from The Mineral Policy Center

http://www.mineralpolicy.org/index.php3?whatshot=3

Mining Exposed as Top Toxic Polluter in U.S.
Yet New Senate Legislation Would Block Stronger Environmental Mining Rules
May 11, 2000


According to the EPA press office, at 2 pm today the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will release its Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) report. The report will reveal that the hardrock mining industry releases more toxics than any other industry in the U.S. The report details the specific pollutants released which include mercury, arsenic, lead and cyanide.

This marks the first year TRI data will be available for the hardrock mining industry. (Hardrock minerals are nonfuel minerals such as gold, silver and copper.) For years, the hardrock mining industry successfully fought efforts to require its submission of toxic release data along with other industries. But in 1997, the EPA, under pressure from Mineral Policy Center and other environmental organizations, required the mining industry to report. This year's TRI will cover 1998 releases.

The new report reveals:
* In 1998 Nevada mines released approximately 1.3 billion pounds of toxic pollutants. One Nevada mine reported releasing over 80,000 pounds of mercury, with over 9000 pounds of mercury released directly into the air.
* The Cyprus Miami copper mine in Arizona released twice as much toxic waste (123 million pounds) as all of the waste released in New York State (60 million pounds).
* Nevada topped the polluter list, eclipsing Texas, due to toxic releases from the mining industry.
* Mining eclipsed the chemical manufacturing industry as the nation's top polluter.
* In 1997 the chemical manufacturing industry reported 797.5 million pounds of toxic releases nationwide. In 1998, in just one state, Nevada, mining reported approximately 1.3 billion pounds of toxic waste.

Yet even as this new information is released by the EPA, mining industry advocates in the Senate attached an anti-environmental rider to this year's Department of Agriculture spending bill. The rider would block new environmental mining rules. If unimpeded by this rider, these rules would reduce toxic mining pollution, and ensure that mining operators, not the taxpayer, pay the billions of dollars required to clean up toxic mine sites.

The Toxics Release Inventory was created in 1986 by the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA) to provide citizens with vital information about toxic pollution in their communities.

"For over a decade the industry has hid behind a reporting exemption, now we know what we've long suspected, the mining industry is the nation's biggest toxic polluter," said Stephen D'Esposito, President of Mineral Policy Center. "With this information, pressure will build for the industry to clean up its act. This is a wakeup call for an industry that for too long has escaped public scrutiny."

"The facts speak for themselves. The industry is releasing massive amounts of mercury into Nevada's air, it releases cyanide into our nations rivers and streams. And yet rather than respond to these facts, some in the Senate continue to listen to mining industry lobbyists," added Alan Septoff, MPC's reform campaign director. "Industry lobbyists are pushing for an exemption from current limits on toxic mine waste dumping on our public lands. This data shows that Congress should enforce existing waste dumping limits, not grant a toxic waste exemption."

 

Bush-Norton Announce Rollback of Environmental Safeguards for Mining on Public Lands
Move to Gut Mining Safeguards Could Threaten Water Resources and Could Cost Taxpayers Billions

March 2001

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Bush administration has reversed itself on greenhouse gases, promised to drill in the Arctic Refuge, and moved to block stronger arsenic standards. Now the Interior Department is joining Bush's assault on the environment and taxpayers. Gale Norton's first concrete attempt at a regulatory rollback will be a proposal to gut updated environmental mining regulations that went into effect at the end of the Clinton administration, the Bureau of Land Management has announced.

On Friday, March 23rd, the Interior Department will propose to suspend new mining regulations that better protect taxpayers and the environment from the impacts of irresponsible mining. Her recommended course of action will be to replace new mining regulations with old regulations that were in place before massive cyanide-process mines dotted our western landscape.

Under the old mining rules, which Norton is recommending be reinstated, the mining industry polluted watersheds throughout the west and left a legacy of polluting mines. EPA estimates 40% of the headwaters of all western watersheds are polluted by mining. Independent reports estimate that taxpayers could be on the hook for about $1 billion in environmental cleanup costs at today's mines.

The new rules correct many of these problems. They establish meaningful environmental performance standards that better protect precious ground and surface water, and they require mining operators post adequate cleanup funds before mining begins to guarantee that taxpayers don't foot the cleanup bill.

The new mining rules also acknowledge, for the first time, the Bureau of Land Management's authority to deny irresponsible mines in places where they would cause "substantial irreparable harm" to environmental or cultural resources. For example, a Canadian mining company has proposed a gold mine almost immediately adjacent to Yarnell, Arizona. If approved, mining operations would be conducted within 500 feet of area homes, the local aquifer would almost certainly be polluted, blasting patterns would force residents to abandon or evacuate their private property for safety, and the primary highway into the community would be blocked every day for blasting. Under the new regulations, the Yarnell proposal could be denied. Under the old regulations the mine would be approved - because under the old rules BLM has been unwilling to act to deny irresponsible mine proposals.

"Yarnell is not facing substantial irreparable harm, it is facing total permanent devastation," said Don Newhouse a resident of Yarnell and spokesman for Guardians of the Rural Environment, which has fought for years to stop the mine. "The special interests of industry and political contributions must not be allowed to destroy entire communities. Please let the Bureau of Land Management deny irresponsible mines."

"This is like going back to the James Watt era of public-lands management, where mining companies get carte blanche to mine on our public lands. Norton's proposal will lead to polluted water and a billions of dollars in taxpayer funded cleanups," said Stephen D'Esposito, president of Mineral Policy Center. Trying to revoke these new regulations shows the American people that the Bush administration puts the needs of its campaign contributors before the needs of taxpayers and the environment. These new rules were the result of a four-year public comment period, yet in 45 days Secretary Norton is proposing to gut them as a favor to mining companies."

"The Interior Department has already taken a position in Federal Court, expressing strong support for these new regulations. It will be very interesting to watch the Bush administration now argue the very opposite in court," said Roger Flynn, Director and Attorney with the Western Mining Action Project in Boulder, Colorado, who represents a coalition of conservation organizations in the lawsuits over the new rules.

The move to suspend the new rules is especially disappointing because Secretary Norton has dealt directly with mining regulatory failure in the past. As Colorado's attorney general she witnessed firsthand the problems caused by weak regulations and irresponsible mining companies, representing the state during the 1992 Summitville mine disaster in which a 17-mile stretch of the Alamosa River was rendered lifeless by cyanide and heavy metal poisoning. Summitville ultimately cost taxpayers about $140 million in environmental cleanup costs.

"We had hoped that Gale Norton learned from her Summitville experience that weak mining regulations harm taxpayers and the environment," said Alan Septoff, MPC's campaign director. "But obviously, her experience leads her to side with mining industry profits over a clean environment and taxpayer protection."

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