W HEN THE WORDS are strung together, the title has a troubling ring of incongru ence. Say it once and it sounds like an oxymoron: the National Park Service's Mining and Minerals Branch (MMB). But David Shaver has seen the grim remains the perilous shafts, radioac tive pits, and poisonous rivers eating away at the national parks. If you were to ask Shaver to explain the purpose of the MMB. his response is liable to unearth a new definition of multiple use. "Most people believe that mineral development doesn't happen, or has never happened. in America's national parks." savs Shaver, chief of the special mining division created by the Park Service in 1983. "Frankly. why should they think otherwise? After all, we're talking about parklands that are held in highest esteem. But because of privately held mineral rights, development in the national parks represents a significant public safety and environmental hazard. Since we don't have the dollars to buy the rights. my office attempts to regulate 28 An open tunnel at an abandoned mine presents a public safery hazard in Arizona's Lake Mead National Recreation Area. About one-third of all national park units have the remnants of abandoned mines within their borders. mineral development to mitigate adverse impacts. It may sound absurd. but it's reality." More than absurd. Shaver says, it's also the law. Of the 357 units in the National Park System, two-thirds are saddled with outstanding mineral rights-mining claims, mineral leases. or privately held resources such as oil and gas. Perhaps one-third have the remnants of 10,000 abandoned mines inside their borders. Two-thirds face mineral development threats either within or around their borders. The universal notion of parks being sacrosanct wildlands has hardly deterred industry and individuals from exercising their legal right to tap the natural payload of minerals lying beneath the earth's surface-be it gold, copper, sul ver, uranium, oil, natural gas, or a list of metals ranging from antimony to zinc. The problem of private mineral rights in national park units exists for a variety of reasons; for example, the rights may have been acquired pnor to park establishment. But in many cases. the problem has its origin in the General Mining Law of 1872. a law that en couraged settlement of the West by granting almost limitless rights to extract hard-rock ores from public lands. More than 100 years after its passage. conservationists are challenging this antiquated law, as well as other mining laws and regulations, in their bid to strengthen protections for vulnerable parks. Several provisions built into the 1872 law-ironically passed the same year that Congress established Yellowstone, the first national park-undermine protection of national parks. And because the law's provisions apply to vir tually all public lands, including national forests and Bureau of Land Management holdings, the parks are in January/February 199! double jeopardy from mining activity permitted outside their borders. "Under the 1872 law, park managers can. not say no." said Phil Hocker, executive director of the Mineral Policy Center, a watchdog group based in Washington. All they can do is stand by and wave their finger." Here's how the law works: upon discovery of a mineral, individuals and companies can at no cost stake a claim to federal land. At that point, they have an exclusive (unpatented) right to extract the mineral. By merely proving that the ground contains profitable hard-rock minerals and paying a $2.50 per acre fee, they can acquire a patent. Once a patent is secured, ownership of the land is transferred from public into private hands, and the right of the landowners to develop the propertyeven for nonmining purposes-is paramount to all other uses. "The 1872 mining law eliminates a park manager's bility to make intelligent decisions," ald Hocker. "I call it the law with no brain." any Impacts inflicted by mining under the law-both inside and outside the national parks-include erosion, sedimentation, air and water pollution, disturbance of wildlife habitat, and scarring of landscapes. Besides this aesthetic and physical harm, there persts a nagging philosophical question nvolving the taking of federal land for development purposes. Once a claim is staked and successfully patented, the landowner can use the land for development activity. If the government opposes the plan or argues that it would harm other resources, park managers must then buy out the claim, often at alues astronomically inflated over the riginal net worth of the supposed minerals lying beneath the ground. "It makes little sense to allow individuals to acquire mining claims for $2.50 per acre when the Park Service has to turn around and buy them back for millions of dollars," said MMB Chief Shaver. "We have witnessed several instances of claims being taken to patent clearly 1th the intent of using them for nonmining purposes," said Floyd Sharrock. chief of the Minerals Management Di NATIONAL PARKS Talc, a soft mineral, is currently mined within Death Valley National Monument. vision for the Alaska region of the Na- Today, all units of the National Park Valley National Monument, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Crater Lake National Park, and several national parks in Alaska. Great Basin National Park, designated the nation's 49th national park in 1986, included approximately 400 existing mining claims. Overall, NPS estimates that approximately 752 patented and 1.346 unpatented claims that were grand-fathered into the parks sull remain. These claims are like a guillotine hanging over the head of the national parks." said David Simon, NPCA natural resources coordinator. "But I believe the Ameri can public is willing to support a rescue-in fact, that's one of the main reasons we need to pass the American Heritage Trust legislation." HILE MINING RIGHTS grandfathered into the parks represent a formidable resource problem, abandoned mines pose a staggering public health hazard. One of the most egregious points of the 1872 law is that it requires no reclamation or clean-up of despoiled lands after min. ing has occurred. The 1976 Mining in the Parks Act gave managers the au thority to demand reclamation for new mines, but it does nothing for cleaning up abandoned sites. For the families of Douglas Jeffery and Bill Eimer, the failures of the law are permanently imprinted on their lives. In 1970, while visiting Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Jeffery fell 165 feet to his death in the abandoned Treasure Vault Mine. In 1984. Eimer died while exploring a tunnel at the abandoned Keene Wonder Mine at Death Valley National Monument in California. In a special report prepared in 1989. the National Park Service chronicled the problem of abandoned mine sites in national parks, which not only pose human health hazards but impact wildlife habitat as well. At Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, for example, park staff surveyed 17 of the park's abandoned mining sites and found debris scattered over 30 acres including 1,163 gallons of petroleum distillates, solvents, and miscellaneous fuels; 142 pounds of cal. cium carbide and litharge (an assay powder containing large amounts of lead); and 310 pounds of dynamite. The report detailed problems at other national park units as well. Among them: • In Grand Canyon National Park, the Orphan Mine that produced uranium in the 1950s and 1960s today emanates dangerous radiation levels. The mine site, located only a few yards off the West Rim Drive and next to a footpath. includes contamination of several acres that are barricaded by only a chain-link fence. In Joshua Tree National Monument east of Los Angeles, there are an esti mated 2.000 dangerous openings sprinkled across the desert. • In Saguaro National Monument, there At Utah's Canyonlands and Capitol mine openings after it was determined that exposure to the openings for as little as eight hours would yield a year's worth of radioactivity. Park Service mining engineer Philip Cloues has surveyed the problem of abandoned mines from Alaska to the outskirts of Washington, DC. The West has a legacy of abandoned hardrock mines because they're so easy to see. but you can go back to the East where there are just as many," Cloues said. "It's like playing Russian roulette with park visitors." These public health hazards and risks to park resources have gone largely unrecognized. This year, some 270 million visitors will enter nanonal parks, some of which are laden with booby traps. Cloues estimates that, all told, it would take an average of $5,000 to neutralize each of the 10,000 abandoned mines in national parks for a total minimum expense of $50 million. This does not include the high cost of removing the hazardous wastes that remain at most of the larger abandoned sites. H ARD ROCK MINING reform continues to be one of the most volatile issues of the public lands debate. Although reform has been discussed for several decades. little progress has been made. Time and again, the politically powerful mining industry has turned back proposed changes to the 1872 law that would recognize environmental concerns. Just as there are efforts to strike the law from the books. the mining industry has been recalcitrant, bankrolling campaigns to keep the existing law in place. Joe Snyder. communications coordinafor for a group called the Western States Public Lands Coalition. says the right to mine should transcend all public lands, even the national parks. "In my opinion, the 1872 law was never meant to be an environmental law. At the time it was created. Congress determined Mineral developers search for gold along NATIONAL PARKS A polluted stream flows from an abandoned coal mine in Big South Fork National Rivers, Kentucky. The yellow color is caused by an iron precipitate that coats the stream bottom. that mining was the best use of the public domain," Snyder said. Conser vationists agree with Snyder on the original intent of the law but argue that environmental changes over the last century make the law obsolete. Late in the 101st Congress, reformers tried to push through an amendment to the Interior Appropriations bill that would have imposed a one-year mora. torium on all issuance of parents during 1991. The rationale behind the measure was that with reform looming, there will be a frantic rush by persons holding unpatented claims to file for patent and seize land ownership. If the patent rush occurs, experts say it would take the federal government more than $1 billion to buy out the claims in the national parks. national forests, and BLM lands. Nevertheless, opposed by strong prodevelopment forces, the bull lost by a vote of 50 to 48 after a three-hour debate on the Senate floor. Hocker considers this but a prelude to a frontal attack on the deficiencies of the mining law, a fight that will be fueled by grow. ing support at the grassroots level. The gaundet was flung in the 101st Congress," Hocker said. "In both the House and Senate there were opening skir mishes, but we expect the 102nd Congress to take up the battle." Indeed, Rep. Nick Joe Rahall D. W Va.) and Sen. Dale Bumpers DArk.), who have shown great leadership on this issue. plan to reintroduce hard-rock mining retorm bills with the upcoming Congress. Conservationists say 1991 will be a year of reckoning for America's elected leaders. While the cost of reform will be high, the cost of losing the national parks to contamina. uon and development caused by an outdated law could be far greater. Todd Wilkinson lives in Bozeman. Montana. He writes frequently for national magazines on conservation and recreation topics in the West. 31 |