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CURRENT PROJECTS
Almeda Mine (Abandoned Mine):
The abandoned Almeda Mine on the Rogue River presents a unique opportunity to expose local, statewide, and national interests to the degradation arising from mineral mining and abandoned and inactive mines. Discharges into the Rogue River are easily observable by motorists and thousands of annual river users.
Almeda's direct discharges of acid drainage and heavy meals into the Rogue River degrade water quality and cause human health risks. In addition, the Rogue River and its tributaries support essential wild salmon and steelhead stocks and well-developed recreation industries. An estimated 45,000 people float this Almeda section of the river annually and thousands more camp and fish nearby.
An overview of the Almeda Mine follows:
Location: Almeda is an abandoned underground gold and silver mine located on the North bank of the Rogue River approximately 25 miles northwest of Grants Pass and 3 miles north of Galice. The mine is located within a Congressionally designated wild-and-scenic river reach. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is the owner and responsible party.
Site Condition: Mine workings include several thousand feet of tunnels and adits, extensive toxic waste rock and smelter tailings make contact with the Rogue River. BLM began sampling mine discharges in 2001. Acid-mine discharges average pH 2.9 and contain iron, manganese, zinc, copper, cadmium, and lead.
Compliance: BLM has not applied for water discharge or water pollution control facilities permits. The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has not required BLM to comply with the Clean Water Act (CWA) or to begin cleanup activities.
Recent Actions: CEE—through public records requests—has confirmed that BLM has failed to complete required site characterization and cleanup plans. DEQ, likewise, no longer maintains an active Almeda case file.
Pending Actions: On August 16, 2007, again presented DEQ's failure to enforce the CWA to the Oregon Environmental Quality Commission at a regularly scheduled meeting, together with a formal written request that DEQ notify BLM that acid mine and heavy metal discharges at Almeda violated the CWA.
[For additional information and photos, see Almeda Mine Photos]
Formosa Silver Butte Mine (Abandoned Mine):
CEE's involvement with the Formosa started soon after CEE was founded in 1994. Formosa's acid mine drainage and heavy metals destroyed 18 miles of a Cow Creek tributary and imperil the City of Riddle's drinking water.
Based primarily on our petition to the EPA in 2005, the abandoned Formosa Silver Butte mine in Southern Oregon is now designed a national Superfund cleanup priority. The EPA's decision opens doors to cleanup funds and remedial actions unavailable so long as the Oregon DEQ refused to relinquish control of the site.
The Formosa designation generated statewide media focusing on the essential underlying story—unless the nation's archaic mining laws are changed to reflect 21st century priorities, the West will have many more Formosas and Almedas.
[For additional information and photos, see Formosa Mine Photos]
Champion Mine (Abandoned Mine):
In 2004, CEE notified the U. S. Forest Service (USFS) of its intention to seek judicial enforcement of the Clean Water Act arising from water quality degradation at the Champion Mine. The Champion Mine is located approximately 30 miles Southeast of Cottage Grove. Champion Mine heavy metal discharges flowed directly from a breach in a collection pond constructed by the USFS in the 1970s.
The USFS prepared a cleanup plan in 2005, awarded the cleanup contract in 2006, and started cleanup activities in 2007. As with most abandoned mines, the site proved more complex that anticipated, including a nearly ten-foot deep deposit of iron precipitate at the collection pond. On-site cleanup managers also report much larger distribution and higher concentrations of heavy metals than anticipated. Significant previously unknown petroleum pollution was also discovered.
[For additional information and photos, see Champion Mine Photos]
Examples of How the 1872 Mining Law Is Abused for Non-Mining Purposes
Residential Occupancy on Mining Claims:
A persistent problem for federal land managers is illegal residential occupancy on federal lands mining claims. Regulations allow residential occupancy only when the stage of mining supports the need for someone to live on-site. This is rarely the case.
CEE has appealed three decisions by the Cottage Grove Ranger District allowing residential occupancy. Each of the appeals was sustained by the Umpqua Forest Supervisor. A noncompliance notice has been issued to one claimant directing the removal buildings and cessation of occupancy. The Ranger District revised a second application and again approved occupancy. This decision and CEE's appeal are pending. In the third case, the claimant failed to renew the claims and the buildings have reverted to federal ownership.
[For photos, see Mining Law Abuses Photos]
Using the Public Lands Mining Law to Log Private Land: How a Powerful Family Bullied the Forest Service
In 1998, the North Umpqua Ranger District issued a decision allowing Faye and Bruce Stewart to conduct "ground disturbing" activities on 27 unpatented mining claims on the Umpqua National Forest (UNF). The approval followed several years of pressure by the Stewarts to build new roads to facilitate logging their patented mining claims. Previous road proposals were rejected by the Forest Service.
Years before submitting their mining plan of operations, the Stewarts declared their intention to build a logging road to their patented (private) mining claims. The UNF told the Stewarts that because the proposed road was within a "key watershed" and "late successional reserves," watershed analyses were required.
The Stewarts rejected the time frames presented by the UNF, and submitted a plan as follows: "A subsequent proposal was submitted by Bruce and Faye Stewart in early February 1995 in the form of a mining proposal. This document described, in very limited detail, intended mining operations and activities ranging from prospecting to production on numerous claims, both patented and unpatented, situated within the St. Peters drainage. The 1872 Mining Law was evoked as a means to obtain expedient vehicular access." (Letter from Forest Service Geologist Larry Broeker to former North Umpqua District Ranger Ned Davis, July 9, 1995.)
The Stewart mining plan included construction of the road for logging their private timber. Despite insufficient historical evidence of marketable quantities of ore, the Stewarts insisted that the UNF Supervisor evaluate their "mining" plans. CEE has learned—through its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests—that the environmental review was mostly a sham. While the public reviewed and commented on the UNF's environmental assessment, the UNF met with the Stewarts to review undisclosed, "confidential" mineral data.
Without public oversight, the UNF approved the Stewart plan, including the new road based solely on confidential data. During the same period, the UNF incurred costs of $250-$300,000 to complete the review of the Stewarts' "mining" plan.
Between 2001 and 2003, the Stewarts built the newly approved road, logged their patented mining claims, but conducted no mining operations. UNF meeting notes—obtained through another FOIA request—confirm that the Stewarts still have no plans to proceed with any mining activities used to justify their road. In fact, the Stewarts have failed to maintain their claims in active status with the BLM. Not only was the Stewart mining plan a pretense for constructing their logging road, the plan of operations approved by the UNF may be illegal.
Although the 1872 General Mining Law invites this kind of abuse, the Stewarts needed the complicity by the Forest Service. Recently obtained records clearly show how the Stewarts bullied UNF staff and management while the Forest Service suppressed technical staff input. Pressure on agency staff can be intense, particularly in small communities. The Stewarts are part of the powerful Bohemia Corporation lumber-and-land-owning family, Faye Stewart was elected to the Lane County Board of Commissioners in 2003.
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