EXPLORATION ’94 — Working together on reclamation of mined

In multiple news conferences in Washington, D.C., critics pummeled the hardrock mining industry for its historical environmental performance. These attacks have focused on abandoned mines in western states, and critics are demanding immediate action by the U.S. Congress to force the modern mining industry to restore these abandoned sites.

The great irony of these attacks is that we agree that abandoned mines must be rendered safe and restored to a suitable condition. We are not even far apart on what needs to be done.

The mining industry and its critics also agree that an accurate inventory of mines needs to be completed. Because no one knows for certain how many mines are abandoned, an inventory is the first step in quantifying the problems and determining the resources necessary to correct them.

We have common ground in agreeing that water resources, health and safety should be top priorities. Additionally, the industry wants to establish standards for reclaiming the most serious sites first.

Already, most gold-mining companies have adopted reclamation and conservation policies that go beyond current regulatory requirements. Beginning in 1986, Santa Fe Pacific Gold began voluntarily — and at its own expense — reclaiming abandoned mines left by others on the company’s lands and on federal lands where it now holds mining claims.

On its own initiative, it has completed cleaning up and making safe more than 1,200 abandoned sites in Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah at a cost of more than US$750,000.

Let me clearly state that today’s mining industry is more than willing to help clean up the mistakes of the past. We just want to make sure that the work is accomplished in a manner that the mining industry can afford. If the burden is too heavy and the mining industry collapses, we won’t be able to help pay for any reclamation.

We support the approach outlined in legislation introduced by Senator Larry Craig which will establish a program for reclaiming previously abandoned hardrock mines, to be administered by the Secretary of the Interior. This is a program that permits the mining industry to remain viable, and a healthy domestic mining industry is the best insurance that abandoned mines will be cleaned up.

Although there are similarities in our goals, I must disagree with our critics on another of their allegations, which claims that mines are still being abandoned or are in danger of being abandoned in a manner that creates hazards or environmental damage. As I’ve outlined, nothing could be further from the truth.

Abandoning mines without proper cleanup and reclamation is illegal and environmentally irresponsible. Under existing law, any company that does so would be punished with stiff civil and sometimes criminal penalties and forced to comply with stringent cleanup orders.

While abandoning mines without cleanup and reclamation was a legal and fairly common practice for mining companies decades ago, today’s gold-mining companies are reclaiming thousands of acres of mined land annually, spending up to $10,000 or more to return each acre to a stable and useful condition. Modern mining operations must comply with an extensive set of regulations under dozens of federal and state laws. Today’s mining companies cannot begin mining until they have filed a detailed life-of-mine plan that demonstrates their commitment to protection of the environment and to continuous reclamation.

Companies also must include plans for closing and reclaiming the site once mining operations have ended, and must guarantee their ability to pay for the implementation of a comprehensive reclamation plan by posting bonds or other sureties with the responsible government agency.

In the course of modernizing mining and performing reclamation on thousands of acres of mined lands, the industry has developed sophisticated and effective technologies and expertise that can be put to good use in solving the abandoned mine problem. Yet we often are stymied by governmental procedures that make the cost of getting permission to reclaim a site more expensive than actually reclaiming the abandoned mine. That doesn’t make much sense.

— From a recent issue of “Washington Concentrates,” a publication of the American Mining Congress. Richard Zitting is president of Santa Fe Pacific Gold.