Mining sand at Heceta Dunes? Citizens not waiting to organize

The incongruities and injustice of 1872 Mining Law in the 21st Century always comes as a surprise to citizens never faced with a mine in their backyard. According to Dina Pavlis in a July 15, 2012 Eugene Register Guard article:

“I was surprised at how easy it is for companies to get ahold of public lands."

Citizens are gearing up to fight the mining of sand at Heceta Dunes on the Siuslaw National Forest along the Oregon Coast before there's even a mining plan.

The Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area has also been threatened by proposals to mine for silica. 

The Eugene Register Guard notes it could be 5 months, 5 years or longer in reporting on a recent meeting of citizens and residents in the Heceta Head area:

“The point is, we’re entirely in the dark as to what their maneuvers might be,” said Philip Johnson, executive director of the Oregon Shores Conservation Coalition, which has been working with the neighbors.

Worried they might get caught flat-footed, the neighbors held a meeting this spring and asked Worthington to attend and answer questions. They also set up a mailing list so that if Pavlis or someone else gets news that Wilson is moving forward, the neighbors can mobilize quickly.

Read the full article and also the July 17, 2012 Eugene Register Guard Editorial - Ugly surprise in the dunes:  Claims underscore need to reform 1872 mining law.

Past attempts to mine silica at the Oregon Dunes National Recreation area: While the not a part of the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area, this history of attempts to mine the NRA may be helpful.

The Oregon Dunes was withdrawn from mineral entry in 1961 by the Bureau of Land Management to prevent the location of new mining claims after almost 4,000 acres of claims were located there in 1959. In 1972 Congress passed the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area Act, which permanently withdrew the area from mining subject to valid existing rights.

In 1989 the federal government had to sell 780 acres of the ODNRA to the claim holder after finding that the silca found there constituted a valuable mineral deposit under the 1872 Mining Law. Read the General Accounting Offices report on the granting of the mineral patent.

The Seattle Times wrote Peter DeFazio was so "stunned" by the sale of the National Recreation Area lands for $2.50 per acre he introduced legislation to change the 1872 Mining Law and to prohibit the sale of public lands and to charge mining companies a royalty for the mineral they extracted on those lands. Read the full article here.

Additional reading:

• Seattle Times, Monday, February 11, 1991 — How a Bellevue Family Got Oregon Dunces for a song—Decades of Persistence and President Grants Law.