1872 Mining Law: time for an update?
Congress considers imposing new royalties on minerals and stricter environmental rules.
from the May 16, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
Newer environmental laws such as the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act apply to such mining. But experts say they have serious gaps.
"They do nothing to protect ground water, which can be hugely threatened by these big mines," says John Leshy, former Interior Department solicitor and now a professor at the University of California, Hastings College of Law in San Francisco. "They don't focus on post-mining cleanup and reclaiming the land. They don't provide clearly for financial assurance for cleanup if things go bad and the operation goes bankrupt."
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An estimated 40 percent of the headwaters of Western waterways are polluted by mining, including the cyanide, lead, arsenic, mercury, and other substances used or unearthed in the mining process. The cost of cleanup could total $32 billion or more, according to the US Interior Department's inspector general.
Meanwhile, the price of gold has pushed up to nearly $700 an ounce, and the price of uranium has more than tripled over the past three years. As a result, mining claims registered with the Bureau of Land Management rose 47 percent between the end of 2002 and September 2006, reports the Environmental Working Group after an investigation of federal records. Five of the top 10 claimholders are foreign corporations (Canadian and Australian), reports EWG, and "hundreds of the new claims filed in the last four years are within five miles of Grand Canyon National Park."
Industry officials and supporters say they're willing to work with Congress on modernizing federal mining law.
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