‘I’m Shocked, Shocked To Discover Land Use Going On Here’

by Vin Suprynowicz
Las Vegas Review-Journal

Once you’ve passed through the entrance gate to one of America’s magnificent national parks or monuments, what do you see?

Nothin’.

In most cases, mile upon mile of nothin’.

The sweeping grandeur of the Grand Canyon is not visible from any common entrance point to the national park of that name. Expect to drive several miles before you see the first signs directing you to various hotels and overlooks. (Entering from the north, LOTS of miles.)

Florida’s Everglades area the same way. Yes, the historic wetlands have been shrunken by unwise water projects further north, but many a child has gazed out upon the sweep of mostly dry grasslands after passing the “now entering” sign, asking, “Where’s the swamp? Where’s the gators?”

The traveler does not come upon these scenic wonders immediately, because those who planned these vast impoundments understood the concept of a “buffer zone.” With few exceptions, the scenic vistas are surrounded by five to 10 miles – or more – of empty space. This was done so that those enjoying the scenery would not have to gaze upon carnivals and trailer parks and used car graveyards teetering at the edge of Bryce Canyon or Yosemite Falls.

Outside the parks and monuments, the federal government may control even vaster acreage. But those lands are turned over to the U.S. Bureau of land Management, which has a different mission, seeing that those less sensitive lands are used in ways that benefit the nation.

Yet listen now to the green extremists, complaining that mining or tree-cutting or grazing is “allowed, only one valley away” or “once ridge line away” from a national park or monument.

On Nov. 4, the BLM announced that on Dec. 19 they will auction off the rights to drill for oil or gas on more than 50,000 acres of BLM land close to or adjoining three national parks in Utah: Arches, Dinosaur, and Canyonlands.

“This is a fire sale,” shrills Stephen Bloch, staff attorney for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, “the Bush administration’s last great gift to the oil and gas industry.”

“We find it shocking and disturbing,” says Cordell Troy, chief National Park Service administrator in Utah. “That’s 40 tracts within four miles of these parks.”

Read it again. Four miles outside the parks’ existing buffer zones.

Franklin Seal, spokesman for the environmental group Wildland CPR, contends “If you’re standing at Delicate Arch, like thousands of people do every year, and you’re looking through the arch, you could see drill pads on the hillside behind it. That’s how ridiculous this proposed lease sale is.”

See people earning an honest wage, working to heat our homes and fill our gas tanks … by using binoculars, perhaps?

In an era when economically struggling Americans actually celebrate when gasoline prices fall below three dollars a gallon – when this nation needs to develop all its domestic resources to reduce its dependence on foreign oil – there’s nothing “silly” about creating wealth and real jobs by allowing entrepreneurs to risk their own capital developing our own resources.

If the borders of the Arches National Park were not properly drawn to create an adequate buffer, it’s odd no one noticed this before. In such specific cases, the BLM might certainly compromise on a parcel or two.

But these protests are like complaining someone “almost broke” the 65 mph speed limit by driving 63 mph, or that they “almost violated” the drinking age by serving beer to a 23-year-old.

“I’m puzzled the park Service has been as upset as they are,” Selma Sierra, BLM director for the state of Utah, tells The Associated Press. “There are already many parcels leased around the parks.”

Details, details. What does that matter, when there’s serious posturing to be done?

Soon we’ll be hearing about unsightly land uses “within a hundred miles of a national park!” Since many national parks sit in closer proximity to each other than that, here in the West, such an “exclusionary zone” would bar millions of acres of deserts scrub from any productive use.

Which, one begins to suspect, is precisely what the green extreme has in mind.

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the daily Las Vegas Review-Journal.

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.

Non-profit begins effort to end land ownership in preserve

Solitation Letter Targets
East Mojave Property Owners


Exclusive to The Guzzler




Expansion of the Mojave National Preserve boundaries will be accomplished through "buffer zones." Source: Mojave Desert Land Trust.

The Mojave Desert Land Trust
P.O. Box 207
Twentynine Palms CA 92277

Dear Landowner,

The Mojave Desert Land Trust, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit organization, would like to purchase the above referenced property located within the Mojave National Preserve.

The Mojave Desert Land Trust purchases from willing sellers land located within national parklands and then donates the property to the National Park Service. All transactions with the Mojave Desert Land Trust are voluntary and at a mutually acceptable fair market value. We cover all transactions costs, including appraisals, necessary environmental site assessments and close quickly with minimal contingencies. Limited funding is in place to complete this acquisition.

You have received letters from me in the past on behalf of the National Park Foundation. For several years, the National Park Foundation was working with a grant that provided funding for acquiring privately owned land withing the National Park System. The Mojave Desert Land Trust has recently been awarded theat grant; I am working with them and look forward to possibly working with you.

If you have an interest in selling your property and would like to learn more about this opportunity, please contact me a (909) 797-5496 or email me a alavender@earthlink.net.

Sincerely,

Allyson Lavender