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Mining Reform
Published: Sunday, October 14, 2007 Register-Guard
Taxpayers are on the hook for a $1.7 million cleanup at Champion mine in Lane County.
The government plowed a half-million taxpayer dollars this summer into the Black Butte mine, also in Lane County, and it may spend more than $5 million there to repair the environmental damage.
The Formosa mine in Douglas County is a Superfund-scale mess that has killed 18 miles of stream and is expected to cost tens of millions of dollars to clean up. And for now, taxpayers are carrying the load.
The 1872 mining law that governs the metals extraction industry is in urgent need of updating to safeguard the environment and taxpayers from mining messes in the future, said U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore.
"There will be more Formosas and much worse—and there already have been all across the West—if the law is not reformed," he said.
The National Mining Association industry group agrees that the old law is due for an update, but Cottage Grove area miners say it would be better just to leave the law alone.
"Taxpayers get hosed in general; what's the point?" said Cottage Grove miner Richard Secord Jr. "This is a drop in the bucket compared with what taxpayers usually get hosed on."
Despite such sentiments, the likelihood appears stronger now than at any time in recent decades that the law will be changed to require mines on federal land to pay royalties.
The federal government would use that money to clean up polluting mines that dot Oregon and much of the West.
When it was adopted by Congress and signed by President Ulysses Grant, the 135-year-old mining law was meant to encourage development of the West.
The law included no environmental safeguards or payment to the national treasury for minerals that mining companies dig from public lands. It's no longer up to the task of regulating a modern, mechanized industry conducted by multinational corporations, DeFazio said.
The 1872 law does not require mining companies to post a bond equal to cleaning up the mess they might make.
That means that companies can fold, dissolve or retreat over international borders when the cleanup bill comes due, and governments then fund the cleanups.
"It's an outrageous imposition on taxpayers that we have to clean up the mess that mining companies leave behind," said Dusty Horwitt, analyst for the Environmental Working Group, which is based in Washington, D.C.
Costly cleanups
Taxpayer dollars have been sunk into cleanup at these Oregon mines:
The Black Butte mercury mine was last in operation in the late 1960s about 14 miles south of Cottage Grove. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency spent a half-million dollars this summer trying to bury most mercury-laden waste rock left over from mining operations. But the toxic tailings that one creek winds through were too deep and too contaminated to move, so the mine is now a candidate for Superfund listing, officials said.
The mine and surrounding land are owned by The Land & Timber Co., run by Lane County father-and-son investors James and Robert Smejkal. The company bought the land long after the mining was done.
Under state and federal law, the owner is presumed responsible for cleanup. The EPA says an investigation to determine the responsible party is ongoing. Robert Smejkal, a real estate attorney, declined comment.
The Champion gold mine was last in operation in mid-century in the Bohemia Mining District 35 miles southeast of Cottage Grove. Tailings and waste rock from 70 years of mining send fish-killing metals- tainted waters into creeks.
Even as the U.S. Forest Service tries to treat the tainted water, a half-dozen or more people continue to search for gold in the 30,000 feet of tunnels honey-combing the mountain.
The Forest Service has no ironclad guarantee that their activities won't eventually overwhelm the publicly funded cleanup—although agency officials say they are considering declaring parts of the area off-limits to mining.
Economic drivers
The price of gold, in the meantime, jumped to an annual average of $663 an ounce this year, compared with $279 in 2003. That has caused a burgeoning interest in mining all over the West, including in Oregon.
An analysis by the Environmental Working Group found a 20 percent increase in the total number of mining claims filed in Oregon over the past four years, with 1,000 more claims on record this year compared with 2003.
But more claims does not necessarily translate into more mining, said Gary Lynch of the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries. "There's always been a rich supply of prospectors," he said.
Today, no commercial metal mines operate in Oregon, he said.
Stopping new messes
The debate in Congress centers around a bill introduced by U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall, D-West Virginia, who has proposed reform legislation every year since 1985 and, finally, gained a foothold this year.
Rahall's bill would impose an 8 percent royalty on minerals taken from public lands in a system that's similar to royalties paid by companies removing oil and gas from public lands.
Mining companies have taken an estimated $245 billion worth of metals from public land in the United States without compensating the public, according to one estimate.
Most of the proceeds from the proposed royalty would go to cleaning up abandoned mines such as those in Lane and Douglas counties.
Much is needed.
Abandoned mines foul the headwaters of 40 percent of rivers in the West and would cost as much as $35 billion to remedy, according to the EPA.
The bill also would empower federal land managers to reject a mining application in favor of other uses of the public's land, such as providing drinking water.
"The idea is not that they'd say 'no' all the time. It's just if a mine is really bad," said John Leshy, former top attorney at the U.S. Department of the Interior and expert on the 1872 mining law.
"If it's going to require perpetual water treatment afterwards, maybe you shouldn't put that mine there," he said.
Divergent views
The National Mining Association opposes Rahall's bill. The royalties are too steep and federal land managers already have enough authority over mining, said Luke Popovich, the industry's spokesman.
Still, the mining industry is prepared to be a constructive player, Popovich said. "We too believe it's long past the time to bring the law up to date and make it reflect modern mining conditions," he said.
In Lane County, some members of the Cottage Grove-based Bohemia Mine Owners Association say the 1872 law should be let alone.
Regulators will no longer tolerate mining messes, said Secord, who holds some of the claims inside the Champion mine.
"You used to do pretty much what you wanted. Basically those days are pretty well over," Secord said.
"You can't turn a rock over without somebody looking over your shoulder to see what's going on downstream. Believe me, you turn a shovelful of dirt, there will be somebody there checking you," he said. Taxpayers are on the hook for a $1.7 million cleanup at Champion mine in Lane County.
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