U.S. halts uranium mining near Grand Canyon

Reporting by Bernard Woodall
Reuters UK



South Rim from the Bright Angel trail in the Grand Canyon in this photo taken January 3, 2008.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Uranium mining near the rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona was halted for three years by a 20-2 vote on Wednesday in a U.S. House of Representatives committee.

A recent surge in mining claims within five miles of Grand Canyon National Park sparked the action. The number of claims close to the park increased to more than 1,100 by January 2008 from only 10 in January 2003, according to government figures.

Almost all those claims are to mine uranium. Uranium prices have increased in recent years as demand has spiked to feed an increasing number of nuclear power plants across the globe, as well as potential new U.S. plants.

"This emergency action will help prevent uranium mining from harming the Grand Canyon and polluting drinking water for millions," said Dusty Horwitt, public lands analyst at Environmental Working Group, which spearheaded the effort to block mining.

Horwitt said mining could pollute the Colorado River, source of drinking water for millions throughout the Southwest, including the Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas areas.

The world consumes about 180 million pounds (50 million to 55 million pounds in the United States) of raw uranium a year.

Mining law reform stalls

By Kim Chi Ha
The Hill.com








The General Mining Act of 1872 turned 136 this month, despite a hard push by environmental groups and congressional Democrats to replace the measure.

Reform supporters had high hopes the Old West-era law would be updated and royalties would be placed on mining operations for the first time. One bill passed by the House would generate about $40 million annually to clean up abandoned mines that pose environmental hazards in the West.

“We’re in a period now with exceptionally high metal prices; companies are making billionaire dollars,” said Dusty Horwitt, public lands senior analyst for the Environmental Working Group.

“Now is the time for change,” he said.

A dispute over how much the royalty should be and who should pay, however, continues to bedevil reform efforts in the Senate.

Although a number of Senate Democrats back broad reform, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has opposed efforts to impose royalties on existing mine operations, as the House bill would do. Few issues are as personal for Reid: His father was a gold miner and his state’s economy depends heavily on the industry.

“One of the elements of the House bill is to set royalties on existing operations, and that is something that Sen. Reid will not support,” said Jon Summers, a spokesman for Reid.

“We’re paying very close attention to the work that’s being done with this bill, and he’s going to move forward with mining reform but in a way that protects Nevada’s industry and all the jobs that come with it.”

An employee at a mining operation makes on average $69,000 a year. The industry employs more than 52,000 workers, according to the state mining agency.

Reid also collects a significant amount of campaign cash from the industry. Mine operations contributed more than $100,000 to Reid from 2001 to 2006, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Reform advocates know they won’t be able to get much done without Reid’s help.

“The road of reform needs to go through Nevada, where 85 percent of hard-rock mining takes place,” said Jane Danowitz, director of the Pew Campaign for Responsible Mining.

“Sen. Reid is probably the No. 1 person to provide the kind of leadership needed here to get this done.”

Originally signed into law during the Indian Wars, when Ulysses S. Grant was president, the Mining Act enables mining companies to buy public lands for as little as $5 an acre and to operate on those lands without paying a royalty. It was designed to bring both economic development and settlers to the West.

Over the subsequent administrations of 35 presidents, mining companies have extracted an estimated $245 billion worth of minerals from public lands without having to pay royalties.

Oil and gas and coal producers, by contrast, already pay royalties to federal coffers.

Like those other commodities, prices for hard rocks have skyrocketed in recent years, creating an old-fashioned boom time for the industry.

Revenues of Barrick Gold Corporation and Newmont Mining Corporation, two of the largest claim holders in Nevada, jumped in the first quarter of 2008. Barrick Gold, which reported a $1.12 billion profit in 2007, reported first-quarter net income of $514 million.

The House passed a bill last year that would impose an 8 percent royalty on new mines and a 4 percent royalty on existing operations.

Industry representatives contend that an 8 percent royalty would be the highest in the world and would discourage companies from opening new mines in the United States. The 4 percent royalty on current operations could push companies to shift more operations overseas.

“We’re already operating in the highest-cost region in the world; therefore, that would be very punitive on mining investments in the U.S.,” said Luke Popovich, spokesman for the National Mining Association, the industry’s main lobbying arm.

“A royalty on current operations would penalize the industries that have already been in operation and didn’t base their business plan on having to give up more of their earnings, or we’re just going to drive another industry offshore.”

Some companies would accept royalty payments, Popovich said. But the royalty should only be applied to future mine operations, he said. Another condition is the royalty should be taken off of profits, not gross revenues, to accommodate for rising “input costs” like labor, steel and energy, Popovich said.

Environmental groups contend the industry can afford to pay more.

“That 8 percent royalty doesn’t affect the mining industry at all, it doesn’t limit their access, and it doesn’t cut their revenue,” said Keren Murphy, spokeswoman for the Sierra Club.

Popovich said the revenues companies are now getting may be temporary, but a royalty would be forever. The mining industry is cyclical, and despite the current demand for minerals on the world market, there is nothing to prevent the market from crashing should China or India slow its growth, Popovich said.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), there are more then 500,000 abandoned mines that will cost $50 billion to reclaim.

The Bureau of Land Management, Office of Surface Mining, the Forest Service and the EPA often fund the cleanup for these sites. The EPA has spent about $2.2 billion to reclaim abandoned mines.

The royalty in the House bill would generate only $40 million a year.

The bill also imposes new environmental safeguards on mining operations. The industry contends that they are duplicative to current laws like the Clean Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and National Environmental Policy Act.

“The current environmental laws in place to regulate the industry for hard-rock mining aren’t working, and we can see that,” said Lauren Pagel, spokeswoman for Earthworks.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has held a series of hearings to examine the hard-rock mining industry, but a draft bill remains under discussion.

“A big part of our work at this stage right now is finding a consensus on certain provisions such as royalties and environmental protections,” said Bill Wicker, spokesman for the Senate committee.

“When you look at the law and see how antiquated it is, there’s no reason why Congress should not be tackling this issue. If the Senate fails to take action, it will serve as yet one more example of why many believe Washington is broken.” said Danowitz of the Pew Campaign.

Uranium claims spring up along Grand Canyon rim

A rush to extract uranium on public lands pits environmentalists against mining companies

By Judy Pasternak, Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times

GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, ARIZ. -- Thanks to renewed interest in nuclear power, the United States is on the verge of a uranium mining boom, and nowhere is the hurry to stake claims more pronounced than in the districts flanking the Grand Canyon's storied sandstone cliffs.

On public lands within five miles of Grand Canyon National Park, there are now more than 1,100 uranium claims, compared with just 10 in January 2003, according to data from the Department of the Interior.

In recent months, the uranium rush has spawned a clash as epic as the canyon's 18-mile chasm, with both sides claiming to be working for the good of the planet.

Environmental organizations have appealed to federal courts and Congress to halt any drilling on the grounds that mining so close to such a rare piece of the nation's patrimony could prove ruinous for the canyon's visitors and wildlife alike.

Mining companies say the raw material they seek is important to the environment, too: The uranium would feed nuclear reactors that could -- unlike coal and natural gas -- produce electricity without contributing to global warming.

And uranium is in short supply. In recent years, mines closed in Canada and West Africa, yet the United States as well as France and other European countries have announced intentions to expand nuclear power. Predictably, the price of uranium has soared -- to $65 a pound as of last week, from $9.70 a pound in 2002.

In the five Western states where uranium is mined in the U.S., 4,333 new claims were filed in 2004, according to the Interior Department; last year the number had swelled to 43,153.

The push to extract more uranium has caused controversy not just involving federal land but private and state land as well. In Virginia, a company's plan to operate in a never-mined deposit spurred a hearing in the Legislature. In New Mexico, a Navajo activist group is challenging in federal court a license issued just over the reservation's east border.

Uranium claims are also encroaching on stretches of Western parkland such as Arches National Park, Capitol Reef National Park and Canyonlands National Park, all in Utah, as well as a proposed wilderness area in Colorado called the Dolores River Canyon.

But by far the most claims staked near any national park are in the vicinity of the Grand Canyon, which draws 5 million people a year. The park is second in popularity only to the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee.

"If you can't stop mining at the Grand Canyon, where can you stop it?" asked Richard Wiles, executive director of the Environmental Working Group.

The energy-versus-environment debate is apparent within the Interior Department, which granted the mining claims through its Bureau of Land Management. Among the mining critics is Steve Martin, superintendent of the Grand Canyon park and an Interior Department employee himself. "There should be some places that you just do not mine," Martin said.

Uranium is "a special concern," he added, because it is both a toxic heavy metal and a source of radiation. He worries about uranium escaping into the local water, and about its effect on fish in the Colorado River at the bottom of the gorge, and on the bald eagles, California condors and bighorn sheep that depend on the canyon's seeps and springs. More than a third of the canyon's species would be affected if water quality suffered, he said.

Martin is not the only one uneasy about potential water contamination. Add to the list the Metropolitan Water District of Los Angeles, which sells wholesale water throughout Southern California from its Colorado River Aqueduct. "In addition to the public health impacts, exploration and mining of radioactive material near a drinking water source may impact the public's confidence in the safety and reliability of the water supply," the district's general manager, Jeffrey Kightlinger, wrote in March to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne.

No one is mining near the Grand Canyon yet, but wooden claim stakes can be spotted throughout the brush-covered plains north and south of the park.

Vane Minerals, a British company, applied last year to start exploratory drilling on seven sites in the Kaibab National Forest, near the canyon's popular South Rim.

Under current mining law the Forest Service had no choice but to allow the drilling, Regional Forester Corbin Newman testified in March to Congress. The mission of a national forest is different from that of a national park, he pointed out. Indeed, signs at the Kaibab Forest's border proclaim that visitors are entering the "Land of Many Uses."

In response to the approval, the Grand Canyon Trust, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club sued in federal court, alleging that the Forest Service didn't thoroughly investigate the environmental effect of drilling and prospective mining. In April, a judge issued a temporary restraining order until the case could be heard, probably in the summer.

Drilling had already begun near Deer Tank Wash just off a dirt road about five miles from the canyon park's east entrance. Now, the only signs of that activity are a 6-inch pipe sticking up half a foot from the ground near a large piñon tree, and hay scattered in the mud.

The wash is prone to flooding, said Taylor McKinnon, a public lands advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity. "Would the water from a flash flood go through the bore hole to the aquifer? We don't know because there wasn't an analysis," he said.

Meanwhile, five additional proposals for exploratory drilling have recently been submitted to the Kaibab National Forest, according to Newman. And three old uranium mines near the canyon park are on standby, ready to resume operations.

Many of the companies are based abroad, said McKinnon, so their directors don't understand the special place that the Grand Canyon holds in this country's lore: "What if an American company went to drill at Stonehenge?"

But the region is special in another way, said Kris Hefton, chief executive of Vane's American uranium operation. The uranium is found in "breccia pipes," contained geological formations that hold higher-grade deposits than elsewhere in the U.S., he said.

Breccia pipe mines can be compact, less than 20 acres in size, and uranium producers say they are among the easiest to restore after mining is done. And because the ore holds so much uranium, it's cheaper to mine. "They're not as susceptible if the price drops," Hefton said, adding that mining can be profitable in the region even if uranium fetches only $20 a pound.

"You won't have to depend on foreign uranium," he said. Though higher-grade deposits are found in Canada, and more mines are opening in the next five years, "you never know what the Canadians will do. It just makes sense to protect our industry from a national security standpoint."

Nevertheless, Rep. Raul M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) has introduced a bill that would withdraw a million acres of federal land around the Grand Canyon park from future mining and mineral leases. The bill would not affect the claims already staked if they are found to contain uranium deposits.

And so uranium mining could end up being part of the view at Gunsight Point, a promontory north of the park at the end of a rutted dirt road on public land. There, two striking gorges merge into one, with a dry wash at the bottom of Snake Gulch coming in from the east and Kanab Creek flowing in from the west.

Overlooking the creek are 14 uranium claims, according to an analysis of Interior Department data by the Environmental Working Group. The claims are held by companies such as Energy Metals and Uranium One Ventures, and by an official with Quaterra Resources Inc., which boasts to investors that it is "one of the largest claim holders in the Arizona Strip District."

On a hazy morning, the canyon is still visible downstream. And Martin, charged with its protection, is apprehensive. His experience with uranium mines is confined to one that actually operated right at the canyon's edge, grandfathered in because it opened before Congress created the national park in 1919. The U.S. bought the site in 1962, and mining stopped in 1969.

Now the remains of the aerial tram that carried the ore can be seen at the South Rim. Special strips have been placed atop the structure to keep California condors from resting there, to protect them from lightning strikes. And a chain-link fence keeps hikers away from mine wastes.

Elevated radiation has been detected in Horn Creek below, and signs have been posted warning visitors not to drink the water. A National Park Service sign explains to the public that uranium deposits also lie just outside the park.

"What does the future hold?" the note asks, and concludes: "Mines and other industry near parks often bring unforeseen impacts on park resources."

Mining claims near wilderness areas seen as threat

Wilderness areas in the state could be affected by pollution, public land analyst says.

By Margot Roosevelt, Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times

A citizen stakes a mining claim. Credit: EARTHWORKS

More than 21,300 mining claims have been staked within 10 miles of California's national parks and monuments and federal wilderness and roadless areas, according to an analysis of U.S. Bureau of Land Management records released Monday.

The claims, which have risen by more than one-third in the last four years, include more than 2,170 staked outside Death Valley National Park, 525 near Joshua Tree National Park and 285 outside Yosemite National Park. There are also 41 near the Giant Sequoia National Monument.

"If just a handful of these thousands of claims already staked turn into major mines, it could have devastating impacts on California's national treasures," said Dusty Horwitt, public lands analyst at the Environmental Working Group, the Washington-based nonprofit that issued the report.

In California and across the West, mining claims have skyrocketed in the last five years, driven by a boom in the global price of gold, copper, uranium and other metals. The rising demand, particularly from China and other developing nations, has spurred interest in reopening abandoned mining sites.

With its open pits, acid drainage, and air and water pollution, mining is the dirtiest of all resource developments, accounting for more Superfund toxic cleanup sites than any other industry. It also requires vast amounts of water for the processing of metal ore at a time when shortages are plaguing California and other western states.

The revival of hard rock mining also comes at a time when Congress is grappling with how to revise the General Mining Law of 1872 -- a statute virtually unchanged since it was signed by President Grant. Unlike the oil, gas and coal industries, which must pay royalties to extract resources from public lands, hard rock miners can dig out ore virtually for free. And, under the law, which has been the subject of fierce debate for decades, mining has precedence over ranching, hunting, fishing, conservation and recreation on public lands.

On Thursday, the House Committee on Natural Resources is to take up a proposed revision of the statute that would impose royalties on mining companies and recognize the value of water quality, fish and wildlife habitat in the consideration of claims. Roadless areas would be off-limits to new mines. Environmentalists are seeking an amendment for buffers that would protect the Grand Canyon, Yosemite and other national parks.

In 2002, California became the first state to require that open pits be refilled after a mine closes. As a result, mining companies moved to friendlier states, such as Nevada and Idaho, according to Adam Harper, former manager of the California Mining Assn., which shut down its operations in December. However, Harper said that underground mines, as well as smaller open-pit operations that don't fall under the regulations, might still be economically feasible in California.

In the 10-mile perimeter around Death Valley National Park, 723 new claims have been staked in the last four years.

"We are very concerned," said park Supt. James T. Reynolds. "I hope the public understands the destruction that will occur. Development will have far-reaching impacts that our grandchildren will have to address."

Reynolds said that the biggest threat is the depletion of groundwater, which is affected not only by mining, but also by farming and rapid residential development in California and Nevada communities near the park. "If too much water is pumped from the aquifer, then the seeps in the springs in Death Valley will no longer flow," he said. "Plants will die, animals will die and they would even have to truck in water to the valley's private resort."

Reynolds is negotiating with two borite mining companies in hopes that they will donate their land to the park. And he has strenuously opposed the reopening of the Briggs mine, an open-pit cyanide operation in the Panamint Range on the park's western border. "Unfortunately, we don't have the authority to stop" any of the claims, he said.

The surge in claims also affects wilderness areas within national forests and other public lands. More than 14,400 claims have been staked within 10 miles of California wilderness areas, including Ansel Adams, John Muir, Trinity Alps and Desolation.

Federally designated roadless areas, including the watersheds that replenish the drinking water in many California cities, are also affected. Nearly 11,400 claims have been staked within 10 miles of roadless areas in the Tahoe, Stanislaus and Humboldt-Toiyabe national forests, with more than 4,600 in the last four years. Nearly 1,500 of the claims are located within the boundaries of roadless areas.

Most of the claims will never become mines, Horwitt acknowledged. "But with the price of gold rising so rapidly, deposits that might not have been economically mined could become much more attractive," he said. "Once a claim is staked, there is very little land managers can do to prevent mining. And it takes only a handful of claims to create a multimillion-dollar Superfund site."

While overall mining claims in California have jumped 19% since 2003, claims have risen in 12 western states by an average of 81%, including 239% in Colorado, 178% in Wyoming and 127% in South Dakota. Claims are even being sold on EBay.

National parks in several states are threatened, including Grand Canyon, which has 815 claims within five miles of its borders and more than 2000 claims within 10 miles, many of them for uranium. Arches National Park in Utah, a jewel of red rock country and a staple of automobile ads, has more than 1,200 claims within 10 miles.

Environmental group seeks to limit mining near protected lands

By JENNIFER BOWLES
The Press-Enterprise

An environmental group is pushing for federal legislation that would restrict mining within 10 miles of a national park, wilderness or other protected lands, a change that could affect thousands of California mining claims.

Congress is considering updates to the nation's 135-year-old mining law.

In San Bernardino and Riverside counties, 525 mining claims lie within 10 miles of Joshua Tree National Park, which straddles both counties, according to the Environmental Working Group. Of those, 207 claims have been filed since 2003. At Mojave National Preserve in eastern San Bernardino County, 2,486 claims are within 10 miles; 670 have been filed since 2003.

Statewide, 21,365 claims are within 10 miles of federal public lands, the group said.

Bill Walker, vice president of the environmental group's West Coast office in Oakland, said Monday that the group analyzed data from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which oversees mining activity.

Legislation has been introduced to update the Hardrock Mining Law of 1872, and the group wants the buffer zone to be included and land managers given power to weigh whether the mines would be harmful to the environment. The buffer zone is needed, Walker said, to protect the landscape and reduce the chance of damage to wildlife habitat and water sources from toxic waste.

The House Resources Committee is scheduled on Thursday to mark up the legislation, introduced by the committee chairman, U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W. Va.

Joe Zarki, chief of interpretation at Joshua Tree National Park, said park officials aren't aware of any current claims that are a threat. He said the Bureau of Land Management typically allows the National Park Service to comment on anything nearby.

"We're always concerned about issues along our borders that might possibly impact resources, whether it's the air, wildlife or vegetation," he said.

Robert Waiwood, geologist with the bureau for the California desert district, said most claims are for gold and that most don't become active mines. The district's only large, open-pit operation, he said, is in Imperial County.

Walker said he's concerned about the few claims that do become active.

"If just a few did," he said, "they would have quite an impact."

Last month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency added the Formosa Mine in Oregon to the nation's Superfund list. Mining activities released copper, zinc and other metals into the headwaters of two creeks and severely degraded 18 miles of stream habitat, the EPA said.

Miners staking claims on public land surrounding national park

Use of centuries-old law helping prospectors gobble up territory.

BY MICHAEL DOYLE
Merced Sun-Star Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Miners are using a controversial 19th century law to claim more public land around national parks like Yosemite, Grand Canyon and Death Valley.

Amid escalating demand for uranium, gold, copper and other metals, a new report shows the number of active mining claims grew 80 percent since January 2003. The rapid increase brings California's active claims to 22,544, and swings a spotlight onto renewed efforts to change the 1872 law that governs Western mining.

"We've seen a modern-day land rush," Dusty Horwitt, public lands analyst with the Environmental Working Group, said Thursday. "The big cause of concern is that the mining law provides very poor protection for our treasured places."

Relatively few claims turn into active commercial mines. Even so, environmentalists grow particularly anxious when claims are staked near national parks. Within five miles of Yosemite, for instance, the new study shows there are now 83 active claims. Of these, 50 have been filed since 2003.

The recent Yosemite-area claims include several dozen filed by a firm identified as the Troy Mining Corp. on land south of Highway 140, in Mariposa County. The company could not be reached Thursday.

All of the claims are filed under a law signed by President Ulysses S. Grant. Critics call the law dangerously outdated, and issued the report Thursday to highlight the need for reform. Miners and their political allies caution against moving too fast.

"We're not opposed to reasonable changes in the mining law," said Russ Fields, president of the Reno-based Nevada Mining Association.

On Tuesday, Fields will testify at a House energy and minerals subcommittee hearing in Elko, Nev. The committee chairman, Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, promised a "productive debate on the need to bring a 135-year-old law into the 21st century."

Under the current law, companies can stake a claim and mine federal land without paying royalties. Costa backs a bill that would impose an 8 percent federal royalty.

Fields called the proposed 8 percent royalty on gross proceeds "extraordinarily high," and said it must take into account mining expenses. These expenses include new environmental requirements imposed in California and other states.

"California is a difficult place to get a gold mine going, even with the price of gold up," said Adam Harper, formerly head of the California Mining Association and now head of the Sacramento-based California Construction and Industrial Materials Association.

The current federal law also enables companies to "patent" — or buy — the land outright for as little as $5 an acre. A moratorium currently blocks these sales. Fields said miners would permanently give up the old patenting provision in exchange for guaranteed long-term access to their mining sites.

The new report, available at http://www.ewg.org, identifies 376,493 active claims on federal land in 12 Western states. In January 2003, there were 207,540 active claims. The Environmental Working Group notes that 4,708 claims are within five miles of a national park.

"This is market-driven," Bureau of Land Management spokesperson Heather Feeney said. "The market price for uranium has increased, and the same is true for hard-rock minerals."

Gold that sold for $325 an ounce in 2002 now sells for nearly $700 an ounce. Uranium prices scraped along at about $10 a pound in 2003.

Now, nuclear power demand has driven uranium prices to above $125 a pound.

Consequently, uranium-related claims in Western states leaped to 32,000 last year, compared to 4,300 in 2004. The latest claims, most uranium-related, include 805 filed within five miles of Grand Canyon and 864 filed in the vicinity of Arches National Park in Utah.

"Mines are quite destructive, a leading source of toxic pollution," Horwitt warned.

Feeney stressed, though, that the federal agency guards against "unnecessary degradation" from mines, and she added that officials "take a hard and serious look" at potential environmental consequences.

Neither the Bush administration nor Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., support the mining law reforms being pushed by environmental groups. Reid's resistance, in particular, significantly diminishes the prospects for the 1872 law being changed this Congress.

Accusations of land grab in budget bill

Malls, homes feared on hundreds of thousands of acres of public forests and deserts

Zachary Coile, Chronicle Washington Bureau
San Francisco Chronicle

Washington -- California lawmakers and environmental groups warn that a provision in the House budget bill could allow individuals and companies to develop hundreds of thousands of acres of desert, forest or other public lands across the state.

The measure could affect areas from Death Valley to Lake Tahoe , where public lands subject to active mining claims could be converted to private ownership. The land could be mined or used to build homes, ski resorts, shopping malls or other commercial development.

Supporters of the provision -- which ends a 1994 ban on mining land purchases imposed by Congress and the Clinton administration -- claim it would help rural communities make the transition to new types of development after their local mines have closed.

"Without this measure, the jobs and infrastructures of these communities can literally disappear when a mine closes," said Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., the chief sponsor of the measure, whose state has a large mining industry.

But opponents see a deeper agenda aimed at privatizing vast stretches of public land across the West and boosting the profits of mining companies, developers and individual claim holders.

"With a wink and a nod, this budget proposal sells not just the minerals under these federal lands but the pristine lands that just happen to be located near high-priced ZIP codes," said Rep. Nick Rahall of West Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the House Resources Committee.

Rahall said nothing would stop claim holders who have "patented," or taken over ownership of public land -- for the purpose of mining -- from using the land to build fast food restaurants, Wal-Mart stores or condominiums.

Supporters and opponents of the measure differ sharply on how much land across the West could be affected.

Gibbons and House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, who added the provision to the budget bill, cited Interior Department estimates that 360,000 acres of federal land meet the requirements for a sale and that only a third of those lands are likely to be purchased. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the sales would raise $158 million.

But environmental groups point out that much more acreage could be put up for sale under the new rules.

The Environmental Working Group, which has collected mining claims data, estimates that 5.7 million acres of public land is subject to mining claims and could be purchased by the claim holders. Nevada has the largest area of public lands with mining claims ( 2.5 million acres), followed by Arizona (641,000 acres) and California (635,000 acres.)

In California, the largest concentration of mining claims is in San Bernardino County, but the claims extend from the Gold Country to the state's border with Oregon. Even Marin County has a small mining claim on 21 acres close to Highway 1 near the town of Inverness.

The provision in the budget bill seeks to change the 1872 General Mining Law, frontier-era legislation that allows any individual to stake a claim on public land that might contain valuable minerals or precious metals such as gold or silver.

Critics have long called for reforming the law, noting that it charges claim holders 1870s-era prices -- $2.50 to $5 per acre -- for land that can yield big payoffs. In 1994, Congress instituted a moratorium on "patenting" mining claims after a Canadian company was able to buy 1,900 acres of land in Nevada containing an estimated $10 billion in gold even though it paid the government less than $10,000.

The legislation by Gibbons would lift this moratorium on purchasing public lands. The provision would also raise the cost of the land to $1,000 an acre or fair market value, whichever is higher -- which proponents say would raise more money for the federal Treasury.

Critics point out the measure appears to weaken requirements that mining claim holders prove there are valuable minerals beneath the ground before approving a sale of land. Sponsors of the measure say the requirement -- called the "Law of Discovery-Prudent Man Test" -- has simply moved to a different portion of the bill.

The mining provision was not part of the budget bill approved by the Senate and will be one of a number of contentious issues as a conference committee of the House and Senate try to reach agreement on a single bill.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., sent a letter to Pombo earlier this month urging him to drop the provision, which she said could allow claim holders to buy big parcels of land, especially in national forests and Bureau of Land Management lands.

"It appears that potentially millions of acres of national forests and (bureau) lands would now be required to be put up for sale by the Interior Secretary merely because they contained 'mineral deposits' -- a term undefined in your bill -- or even 'depleted' mineral deposits," Feinstein said.

Feinstein said the measure could affect public lands in or near the Mojave National Preserve and Death Valley, as well as 40,000 acres with active mining claims in the Tahoe National Forest and west of Lake Tahoe.

Brian Kennedy, a spokesman for Pombo, said the legislation specifically bans land sales in national parks, wilderness areas, national monuments, national conservation areas, national wildlife refuges, national recreation areas, wild and scenic rivers and national trails. The bill would apply to other public lands not protected by those designations.

A spokesman for the National Mining Association said the industry is willing to accept higher costs -- $1,000 or more per acre -- in return for the government lifting the moratorium on buying lands where they have mining claims.

"The industry will be better off because we will be able to attract investment by allowing more lands to be privatized -- specifically lands that might have valuable mining claims and where investors might be reassured that they will be able to own the land rather than essentially operating under the government's heel," said Luke Popovich, the association's spokesman.

Most mining companies plan to use the land only for mining -- not real estate development -- although Popovich predicted there would be few cases where mining claim lands would be transformed into homes or ski resorts.

"It could happen," Popovich said. "There will be instances where a resort -- perish the thought -- that might employ people would take up some of the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of acres of federal land. Even if it does happen, in the minds of many people that will be a good thing."