Marty Durlin

Online Editor

More than 90 formal protests from local governments, organizations and individuals, plus a letter from the Salazar Brothers…taken together, they’ve halted the auction of 144,000 acres of prime land in southern Colorado’s Rio Grande National Forest — at least for a while.

The BLM announced the deferral of 84 parcels from its May 8 oil and gas lease sale “until additional analysis can be completed.” But a spokesman for the BLM said the agency is “completely unsure” of how long the leases may be deferred (all part of The leasing protest game). The agency cited information “received from the public, local governments and our own internal review” as the reason for the deferral. Among the concerns: the impact of gas and oil development on lynx habitat (the deferred parcels are within the core release area used by the Colorado Division of Wildlife to reintroduce lynx), potential damage to the cutthroat trout and other wildlife including the greater and Gunnison sage grouse and the boreal owl. There was also a general outcry from the public — concerned about the impact of oil and gas development on health and quality of life.

One protester, retired organic farmer Greg Gosar, put it this way: “Now our life’s work and final dreams could possibly be sacrificed to a short-term, destructive, and so far impotent attempt by the out-going administration to deal with world-wide energy problems. We are deeply angered at the shallowness and futility of this idea.”

Three parcels near Crestone (one of the local governments that filed a formal protest) will still be auctioned May 8.

Evelyn Schlatter

The Bureau of Land Management released a statement April 30 to the press that it rejected a hardrock mining lease application (chose the “no action” alternative, in agency-speak) from General Moly (formerly Idaho General Mines, Inc) for an area 12 miles northeast of the Mount St. Helens volcanic crater. The BLM director for Washington and Oregon said that the agency wasn’t able to determine whether a hardrock mining lease would be compatible with the purpose for which the lands were originally purchased.

The open-pit mine was originally slated to be anywhere from a few hundred to 3000 acres, from which copper, molybdenum, and silver would be extracted, over the next 30-40 years. BlueOregon noted that much of the area originally considered for the lease entered an area protected under President Clinton’s 2001 Roadless Rule and mining at Goat Mountain could have affected threatened salmon and steelhead runs in the Green River as well as drinking supplies of Kelso, Longview, and Castle Rock. For a handy map of the Mount St. Helens area, click here.

General Moly, based in Lakewood, CO applied for a fractional interest hardrock mining lease in March 2005 for 217.3 acres and a fringe acreage lease for 682.2 acres in the vicinity of Goat Mountain and the headwaters of the Green River. The planned mine, on the south-facing slope of Goat Mountain, would have eradicated much of the mountain.

(Read on …)

Mary K. Bowannie

I was talking to Mario Atencio, one of my students in the Native American Studies program at the University of New Mexico, about the challenges of blogging. Putting one’s thoughts out there, keeping the word count tight, meeting the proverbial deadline, and addressing the issues from a personal (rather than a reporter) standpoint. Mario listened patiently as we sat outside on a very cold, windy day in Albuquerque, NM, waiting for The Longest Walk 2 event to start. When I finally stopped thinking out loud, he turned and looked at me and said, “Just let it flow.”

So here it goes.

The Longest Walk 2 event April 11 in Albuquerque was powerful and empowering. The local media coverage was mostly photo ops of the dancers, the colorful side of the event. Many folks heard the words of Dennis Banks and were reminded to keep fighting the fight. Banks feels not much has changed over the years.

While I respect Dennis Banks’ sacrifice and contributions, I have to disagree with his statement. Yes, some things haven’t changed: Indigenous lands and our sacred places are still being contaminated, endangered and raped. Tribes wrestle politically on a tribal, state and federal level to assert and exercise their sovereignty.

So what has changed?

(Read on …)

Sarah Gilman

Assistant Editor

Many Western towns were once home to a vibrant mining culture of “men with boots on,” as High Country News Editor Jonathan Thompson wrote in a recent editorial. That is, until wild fluctuations in metal prices, increased federal regulation, and ample opportunities abroad drove a number of big mining companies out of their Western strongholds. But with the rise of China and India boosting demand, metal prices are again sky-high and mining in the West, as reported in a recent High Country News package, is on its way back — for better or worse.

Now, another subset of “men with boots on” (and likely more than a few booted women) — hunters and anglers, some of the West’s longest active conservationists — is hoping that the impacts (bootprints?) of that resurgence on public lands and wildlife will be better controlled by the federal government than during booms of the past. About 400 sportsmen’s groups, led by the National Wildlife Federation, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership and Trout Unlimited under the umbrella of Sportsmen United for Sensible Mining, are calling for Congress to get moving on (longstanding) efforts to reform the antiquated 1872 mining law.

(Read on …)

Jonathan Thompson

Editor in Chief

Today’s NY Times comes West, yet again. This time the Times is in Idaho, reporting on Wallace, a mining turned tourist town that’s turning back to mining thanks to high metal prices. It’s happening all over the West, as HCN reported in its Hardrock Resurgence package back in February.

But sometimes those booms are busting even before they start. Two of the proposed new Colorado mines we mentioned in our mining package, one in Rico, and one in Crested Butte, have both lost steam recently. A company behind the Crested Butte proposal pulled out because of potential changes to the 1872 mining law and possibly because of strong local opposition. Ditto in Rico.

Meanwhile, down in southern Arizona, the proposed Rosemont Mine is catching hell from the locals, where there is strong opposition. And the forest service is now getting flak for failing to properly gather public comment.

High metal prices or not, it’s not easy getting a mine off the ground. Today I did some reporting on another type of metal mining that’s been booming in the West. Check out future issues of HCN for that story.

Ed Quillen

Nothing like a crisis to unite a community, right? Well, not if that community is Leadville, Colo., seat of Lake County and the highest incorporated city in the United States at 10,152 feet above sea level. The old mining town has been in the news lately on account of a clogged mine drainage tunnel.

There’s a water treatment plant at the mouth of the 12,000-foot-long tunnel. But somewhere behind it there’s a blockage that may date back to 1995, and contaminated water has accumulated underground. If the growing water pressure pushed through or around the blockage, it might wash out the treatment plant and a nearby mobile-home park, and send a toxic plume down the Arkansas River.

Lake County Commissioners despaired that the tunnel’s owner, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, would ever get around to fixing the problem. So a month ago, they declared a state of emergency. This worked like the proverbial two-by-four applied to a mule: It got the beast’s attention. Even the New York Times has covered the story.

As someone who lives 60 miles downstream from Leadville in Salida, it was fine by me. We are dependent on river-related tourism here, and the last thing we need is another (there was one in 1983) big release of orange mine-murk discharge that kills most aquatic life in the river.
(Read on …)

Marty Durlin

Online Editor

Rico, Colorado residents are likely breathing a huge sigh of relief with the announcement today that Bolero Resources no longer intends to purchase the Silver Creek property east of the tiny mountain town. The Canadian mining company signed a $10 million letter of intent with Rico land developers in October to purchase the property, which Bolero CEO Bruce Duncan said contains “the richest grade molybdenum deposit in North America.” (See HCN story, A Rico Renaissance.)

Explaining that “due diligence investigations could not be satisfactorily addressed to permit the entering into of a definitive agreement,” Bolero terminated its letter of intent with Rico Renaissance and also cancelled its agreement with the financing agent, Aura met Trading, LLC.

Duncan had earlier said that as many as 1,000 miners could be employed at the mine. The town of Rico has a population of about 200 in the winter, perhaps double that in the summer, and officials in Rico and nearby Telluride were concerned about the effects of such an influx on the infrastructure and housing in the area.

Townspeople and town officials were also concerned about the impact on Rico’s drinking water source on Silver Creek, mining waste, noise and dust.

Bolero now “intends to focus on the development of its two core molybdenum properties located in Montana, Bald Butte and Cannivan Gulch.”

Paul Larmer

Publisher

Not long ago, many Westerners, including myself, assumed that the American West was about to outgrow its “extractive” past, when timber, mining and grazing dominated our economy and the public lands. Newcomers were pouring into the region and many of them were not attached to industry; they brought wealth from the cities on the coasts, and were as interested in fly-fishing and mountain biking as they were in the small businesses they bought or brought with them on a computer. The traditional industries — or “Lords of Yesterday,” to repeat a name coined by University of Colorado law professor and author Charles Wilkinson — were on the decline, finally beaten down by the country’s love of wild places and recreation.

Of course, anyone paying attention would have known that the demise of these industries had more to do with global economics than environmental regulations. Big Timber fell in the Northwest not because of the Spotted Owl, but because the companies had cut most of the easy-to-get-to trees, and were moving to greener and cheaper pastures in Russia and other parts of the world. Mining disappeared in many part of the West because prices were down due to new mines abroad flooding the market with cheaply mined metals.

The dormancy of the West’s extractive industries was just a temporary phenomenon. As soon as market conditions changed — and prices rose — industry would kick into gear. That is what is happening now, with natural gas, uranium and a bevy of metals (see HCN editor Jonathan Thompson’s mining story here). Now we have the Old West and The New West living cheek by jowl, creating some significant friction.

While there are many factors in the recent rise of commodity prices, one country’s appetite looms extremely large: China. In a recent Mother Jones cover story, called The Last Empire: China’s Pollution Problem Goes Global, writer Jacques Leslie lays out some jaw-dropping statistic surrounding “the most massive and rapid redistribution of the earth’s resources in human history.” (Read on …)

Ed Quillen

Does a major environmental disaster loom for the Arkansas River as it courses through the Colorado mountains?

The fear is that high water, thanks to a heavy snowpack, will force its way past an obstruction in the Leadville Mine Drainage Tunnel near the river’s headwaters, surge past the treatment plant, and roar down the Arkansas River, carrying a heavy load of minerals and other pollutants that kill aquatic life, from tiny bugs to brown trout.

Leadville’s historic mines sit on the hillsides east of town, and ever since they first started digging shafts in about 1875, those holes have collected water. At first, the mines were pumped dry, but that’s expensive.
In 1906, the four-mile Yak Tunnel was completed. It ran under many mines, thereby draining them into California Gulch, a tributary of the Arkansas River.

Mine drainage, as you might suspect, is not the cleanest water around. The water becomes acidic when it accumulates against sulfide rocks, and many ores are sulfides. Once turned acidic, the water dissolves and carries minerals like zinc and cadmium, and in sufficient concentrations, these are toxic to river life.

No one worried much about that in 1906, and it wasn’t a concern in 1943, either, when work began a similar project, the Leadville Mine Drainage Tunnel. World War II was raging, the United States needed lead and zinc, and to get full production from mines not drained by the Yak, the U.S. Bureau of Mines started work on a new drainage tunnel. (Read on …)

Jodi Peterson

Associate Editor

Utah’s Copper King Mining Corporation is now touting its “environmentally friendly” techniques for digging and processing ore. The press release says it all:

The decision to go green reflects conscionable concerns new management has from their many years of experience. As a result of these concerns and the desire of management to have the world know of its efforts in this regard, management is pleased to announce that the company has entered into a contract with Clear Vision International based in Los Angeles, California, to represent the company in several areas of public relations.

Always the first and most critical step in greening a corporation — pay a PR flack to make sure “the world knows” about your new eco-cred.

The copper industry is in serious need of putting a shine on its record — see HCN stories about mining pollution here, here and here, and this list of stories about copper mine pollution from the New York Times.

Marty Durlin

Online Editor

According to a copyrighted story by Michael Coleman in the Albuquerque Journal:

Navajo President Joe Shirley, backed by Reps. Tom Udall (D-NM) and Rick Renzi (R-AZ) is pressing the U.S. government to halt any new mining on or near the Navajo reservation.

Among the proposed extraction projects is a uranium mine at Crownpoint which abuts Navajo land where there is an aquifer supplying drinking water for thousands of people.

Four million tons of uranium were mined on the Navajo reservation between 1944 and 1986, and Shirley said there are “open scars on the ground leaking radioactive waste” from improperly closed mines, still posing health problems for Navajo families living nearby.

“Shouldn’t we clean up first before we start getting into new areas?” Udall asked. He said it was unclear whether a moratorium would require an act of Congress or an order from the Bush administration.

Navajo tribal members filed a petition in the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver in February, seeking to block Hydro Resources Inc. from injecting chemicals into the ground to release uranium in a process called in situ leaching. The Navajo petition asks the court to reverse Nuclear Regulatory Commission orders allowing the mines.

Uranium prices are soaring in response to increased demand for nuclear fuel for U.S. nuclear submarines and proposed nuclear power plants.

The Navajo Nation banned uranium mining and processing on its land in 2005. See Laura Paskus’ HCN story on the ban, and another story on Navajo mine workers’ health concerns.

Jodi Peterson

Associate Editor

Earlier this year, Goat noted a useful new Web site from the BLM — the Geocommunicator. The site boasted interactive maps showing land use and mineral leasing, but suffered from a painful user interface. Now the agency has revamped the Geocommunicator site:

The Energy Map Viewer has been enhanced to include stipulations, which have been broken out into 16 categories on all energy and oil and gas map viewers. The Energy Map Viewer allows users to see most of the energy-related authorizations that the BLM issues, all in one map viewer.

The latest release of GeoCommunicator also includes new features such as:
Site Mapper, which provides interactive mapping of abandoned mines from many agencies, and also shows BLM facilities (recreation sites, campgrounds, buildings, and administrative sites).

The Healthy Lands Map Viewer provides interactive mapping of range allotments, watersheds, and BLM facilities.

Check it out; there’s a lot of good information available, and it is indeed much easier to work with now.

Jodi Peterson

Associate Editor

Native Americans may find they have more control over mining projects on their lands, thanks to Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz. The House Natural Resources Committee, which is laboring to overhaul the obsolete 1872 Mining Law, adopted a provision sponsored by Grijalva to help tribes harmed by mining. H.R. 2262, the Hardrock Mining and Reclamation Act of 2007, had originally included language addressing tribal impacts, but it was later removed from the bill. (See our earlier stories on mining reform here and here.)

The reinstated amendment allows tribes to request that certain lands not be mined. According to the Indigenous Environmental Network, the amendment will:

“… enable Tribes to petition the Secretary of Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to withdraw federal lands from mining activities that have cultural and religious values. A separate process will require the Secretaries to establish regulations in consultation with Tribes to determine the appropriate information needed for a Tribal petition requesting withdrawal on land important for cultural and religious reasons.”

Welcome news for all the Indians harmed by mining — the Hopi who fought to reclaim their groundwater from the Black Mesa coal mine, the Navajos sickened by uranium mining, and many more …