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| January 30, 2013 Forest Service presentation on Beal Mountain Mine |
[National Mining Association] expects similar legislative action, especially in the House, dealing with one of its top priorities -- expediting permit reviews for mining metals and minerals on public land. Permits for large mines, the group says, can take a decade to process.
"What we need here in the U.S. is more enabling policies," said the industry group's general counsel, Katie Sweeney, noting the United States' dependence on imports for minerals like rare-earth elements. "We need common sense and reasonable policies to guide access."
Sweeney said she expected legislation like Rep. Mark Amodei's (R-Nev.) H.R. 4402, which passed in the House during the previous session of Congress and would significantly streamline the permitting process, including litigation limits.
Quinones also reports that:
But for the NMA, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's 20-year ban on new mining claims in about 1 million acres around Grand Canyon National Park is an example of the administration's lack of commitment to domestic resources, including uranium for nuclear power plants.
Arizona lawmakers may yet introduce legislation to scrap the administration's mining limits around the park. At the same time, NMA is proceeding with a lawsuit in Arizona U.S. District Court taking aim at not only the new Grand Canyon mining limits but also the constitutionality of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act.
Sweeney said the group's litigation, in a move that has alarmed environmentalists, could "prevent future secretarial withdrawals over 5,000 acres." She said the industry is also hoping for a review of other existing mining limits.
If the mining group is able to win their argument in court that withdrawals over 5,000 acres are unconstitutional this would take away one of the few ways citizens and communities have of preventing mining
So the mining industry keeps polluting. They then leave taxpayers and communities to pay the price while they complain bitterly to their allies in Congress, insisting on less regulation and quicker approval of mines and go after one of the few recourses citizens have to protect the waters we all depend on.
According to the Clark Fork Coalition:
In 1996, industry boosters touted Beal Mountain Mine as an ultimately environmentally-friendly cyanide heap-leach mine. Instead of making any "friendly" headlines, Beal Mountain is now instead distinguishing itself in its cleanup and reclamation stage as the latest mining fiasco to contaminate the Clark Fork's headwater streams.
Situated on mostly Forest Service land along the Continental Divide near Anaconda, Montana, Beal Mountain Mine began operations in the late 1980s. Before the mine, sampling had shown the water in nearby German Gulch to be so pure that levels of most pollutants were not at all detectable. That changed almost immediately after mining began. By 1992, for example, selenium levels were sampling out at 28 parts per billion-- over five times the state's five part-per-billion water quality standard that is supposed to protect fish. Despite the documented problems, regulators decided to let the violations slide until the mine closure and reclamation stage, years in the future.
In those intervening years, however, two things happened. First, the pollution got worse. Second, Pegasus Gold-- Beal Mountain's parent company-- filed for bankruptcy in 1998 in the wake of massive water quality violations at its Zortman-Landusky mine in north-central Montana. The bankruptcy left the state and the US Forest Service to reclaim the site as best they could with an inadequate $6.6 million bond. (Emphasis added)Read more about the Beal Mountain Mine at the Clark Fork Coalition Website and about the Okanogan Highland Alliances struggle against the Buckhorn Mountain Mine, another so-called modern non-polluting mine that began polluting shortly after it began operating.
Write to your congressional representative and remind them of these facts.
