Do uranium mines belong near Grand Canyon?

Mining companies stake claims on federal land adjoining the park, while opponents say drinking water will be at risk.

Mining companies are staking claims on federal land near Grand Canyon National Park. Opponents say radioactive isotopes may leach into drinking water. Mining companies, backed by the administration, say there’s no cause for concern. (Melanie Stetson Freeman – Staff/File)

By Mark Clayton
Christian Science Monitor

GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, ARIZ.
On a ragged outcrop just a short walk from a Grand Canyon overlook where millions of visitors annually come to gawk at one of the world’s most stunning vistas sits the old Orphan uranium mine. Soil radiation levels around it are 450 times higher than normal. It’s encircled by a protective fence.

A sign warns: “Remain behind fence – environmental evaluation in progress.” In the canyon hundreds of feet below, another sign by gurgling Horn Creek instructs thirsty hikers not to drink its radioactive water.

Even so, Horn Creek eventually splashes its way to the canyon bottom and into the Colorado River, a vital water source for 25 million people from Las Vegas to Los Angeles to San Diego. In that mighty river, the Orphan’s radioactive dribble is diluted to insignificance.

But what if a dozen or even scores of new uranium mines were leaching uranium radioisotopes into this critical water source? That is what Arizona’s governor, water authorities in two states, scientists, environmentalists, and Congress are all worried about. Should they be?

Everybody from mining-industry officials to environmentalists agrees that the Orphan mine is a poster child for the bad old days of uranium mining going back to the 1950s. Today’s regulations and newer mining techniques make such pollution far less likely, industry officials say, though environmentalists vehemently disagree. The question remains: Is Orphan only a vision of the past – or is it a vision of the future, too?

The US Southwest may be about to find out. Driven by soaring uranium prices and fresh interest in nuclear power, mining companies have staked more than 10,600 exploratory mineral claims – most of them smaller than five acres – spread across 1 million acres of federal land adjacent to the Colorado River and Grand Canyon National Park, a federal official told Congress in June. Most are uranium claims, though some may be for other metals, observers say.

Such numbers and testimony about pollution have begun to move Congress. Following congressional hearings, the House Natural Resources Committee in late June declared an emergency withdrawal of 1 million acres from any mining claims. The federal land in question is on the north and south rims of the Grand Canyon, just outside the national park, through which the Colorado River flows.

While a federal lawsuit and injunction have temporarily stalled uranium development in the national forest on the south rim, Congress’s action is being resisted by the Bush administration on the north rim.

There, lands controlled by the Bureau of Land Management are unaffected by the lawsuit to the south and exploration claims are still being processed routinely.

One such claim, by Quaterra Alaska Inc., the US subsidiary of Vancouver-based Quaterra Resources, Inc., was approved for exploratory drilling on June 27 – just two days after the House’s Natural Resources Committee vote that should have stopped such action.

A Department of Interior spokesman says the BLM is still processing claims because the agency doesn’t consider the Congressional vote valid. In a July letter it argued that the committee didn’t have a quorum, a point disputed by the committee’s chairman and the House parliamentarian.

Mining regulations are tougher now

“They are charging forward,” says Taylor McKinnon, public lands director for the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group based in Tucson, Ariz.

Last month, the US Department of Energy approved 42 square miles for an expanded uranium mining program in the watershed of the Dolores River, a tributary of the Colorado. But the question of what impact dozens of new uranium mines across the entire Colorado River watershed might have – an environmental disaster or an energy bonanza with few ill effects – remains hotly debated.

“Old mines like the Orphan were mined in the 1950s under no federal regulations whatsoever,” says Eugene Spiering, vice president of exploration for Quaterra. “Most mines today are above the water table, which makes chances of leakage practically nil. What we have now is a well-regulated industry.”

Still, there has been no regionwide environmental assessment of the likely impact of a new uranium mining boom on the Colorado River, close observers say. Nor is such an evaluation apparently of much interest to federal land managers, if comments on the subject by a Department of Interior spokesman are any guide.

“We already have the Clean Water Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and others that require comprehensive analyses before any mining is done, so there won’t be impacts to the environment,” says Chris Paolino, a spokesman for the Department of Interior. “At this time we’re still evaluating plans on an individual basis, but [a regional study is] not something I can rule out.”

“We hear from the industry and federal government that today ‘we can do it safely,’ ” says Roger Clark, air and energy director for the Grand Canyon Trust, an environmental watchdog group. “But the burden of proof is on the proponents. Somebody needs to ask, ‘What is the cumulative threat to drinking water in the Colorado River – not just from radioactivity, but from arsenic and mercury from these mines?’”

Some are asking for exactly such a study. With cities like Phoenix relying on clean Colorado River water, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (D) is calling for an “overall environmental im­­pact analysis,” citing the uranium boom’s “potential to seriously harm” the water quality of Grand Canyon National Park and the Lower Colorado River.

Uranium company officials say fears about radioactive contamination are overblown. New mining methods, far tougher environmental standards, and desert-dry conditions for most mines mean minimal risk to the Colorado River and the region’s precious groundwater resources, they say.

“Yes, there were issues in the past,” says Ron Hochstein, president of Denison Mines, a Toronto-based company with at least nine mines under development in the area targeted by Congress. “But that’s not the way we do things today. We understand and know a lot more about uranium, radium, and radon and the impacts of those. So to say some things that happened in the 1950s and 1960s will happen again today is not a good comparison.”

Proven deposits are likely to be mined

Whether or not the thousands of unproven claims are ever developed, a fair number of uranium mining sites seem almost certain to reemerge. “Congress’s action only applies to unproven claims,” Mr. Clark points out, leaning against a fence at the Canyon Mine site.

Denison’s group of established mine sites – including the Canyon Mine in the Kaibab National Forest a few miles south of the park – are among those likely to reemerge. The Canyon Mine was mothballed in the 1980s – before it had even opened – because of sinking uranium prices. It is a proven site: Uranium is there. Denison must still apply for new state environmental permits in order to proceed, but expects its mines to begin opening around 2010.

Despite Horn Creek pollution, the good news is that recent studies have shown that most springs and creeks in the Grand Canyon still have good water quality: Uranium and other trace metals appear in low concentrations, according to congressional testimony.

The bad news, experts say, is that digging into the cylindrical vertical rock formations in which uranium is found – they’re called “breccia pipes” – can “mobilize” the uranium, causing it to oxidize when water from periodic downpours seeps down through the rock strata.

Indeed, the negative impact of water on uranium mines should not be minimized even in the desert, says Chris Shuey, a scientist who directs the Uranium Impact Assessment Program, a nonprofit research and information center. His research in the Churchrock area of the Navajo Nation near Gallup, N.M. – where uranium was mined and processed between 1952 and 1983 – showed statistically significant effects on human health from the elevated levels of radioactivity in the region.

While much uranium in the region does occur in formations above the water table, the bottom of the breccia pipes are located in the upper portion of the Redwall Limestone, a principal aquifer supplying springs in the Grand Canyon and wells for much of the region, Dr. Shuey told Congress in March.

“When you take uranium and the other trace elements out of their resting places in nature and expose them to the environment,” Shuey says by phone, “you expose them in higher concentrations to the environment and intensify their effects. People don’t appreciate the cumulative impact of mining in a consolidated area. There’s a very real threat.” A flash flood swept through Havasu Creek last week. That same watershed includes the Canyon Mine and numerous uranium claims.

Abe Springer, a hydrologist and researcher at Northern Arizona University at Flagstaff, has made a career studying the movement of groundwater through the Redwall and other aquifers into seeps and springs that supply not only hikers, but also most of the region’s animal life with the water they need to survive.

“Once these elements became mobile through mining activities,” Dr. Springer told Congress in his March testimony, “they would continue to be mobile through the aquifer and eventually discharge in springs impacting the human uses of water of these springs.”

Even so, some industry figures dispute any connection between the Orphan uranium mine and higher radiation in Horn Creek.

A “fact sheet” e-mailed by Quaterra’s Mr. Spiering says, regarding water pollution, that “statements that the historic operations at the Orphan Mine have been polluting Horn Creek are false.” It cites a 2004 US Geological Survey study showing dissolved uranium in a range from 8.6 to 29 parts per billion and “within the EPA levels of safe drinking water.”

Closer look at USGS study

But a closer examination of the 2004 results finds that some uranium concentrations are at the upper end of the safe range for Horn Creek.

The same study’s results for nearby Salt Creek (at 29 to 31 p.p.b.) “approached or exceeded the US Environmental Protection Agency’s drinking water standard” of 30 p.p.b., according to Shuey’s testimony to Congress.

The two creeks – Salt and Horn – also had by far the highest levels of the 20 springs and seeps tested in that study, Shuey testified. That USGS study also did not seek to assign causes of the higher radiation levels, he noted.

But the potential impact of tainted groundwater on native Americans, hikers, and local wildlife – as well as major cities downstream – are all reasons Rep. Rául Grijalva (D) of Arizona has sponsored legislation to permanently withdraw federal land around Grand Canyon National Park from uranium mining.

“I hope we’ve matured enough not to forget history,” Representative Grijalva says in a phone interview. “Protection of water quality in the Colorado River is vital to the long-term health and safety of humans and other species. We can’t afford to simply issue permits and decades from now simply dismiss the consequences as unintended.

“We should know better than that.”

Hikers missing in Grand Canyon flooding found

By CHRIS KAHN
Associated Press




A stranded rafter is lowered to shore after being short hauled across the Colorado River Sunday Aug. 17, 2008 in the Grand Canyon. An earthen dam broke near the Grand Canyon early Sunday after heavy rains that forced officials to pluck hundreds of residents and campers from the gorge by helicopter. (AP Photo/National Park Service)


PHOENIX — Rescue crews have located a handful of hikers who were missing after flooding struck a remote part of the Grand Canyon, authorities said today.

The 11 people from two families were tracked down in the canyon on Monday, Coconino County Sheriff's Department spokesman Gerry Blair said. They were the last to be accounted for after creeks overflowing with runoff from severe thunderstorms washed away trails during the weekend, stranding dozens of tourists.

"We have met them, and they're OK," Blair said.

Authorities were receiving more calls from people who believe their loved ones may still be in the canyon, Blair said. But everyone who followed the rules and signed in at the bottom of the trail into the remote area had been evacuated.

Rescue crews checked the hiking trails and surrounding gorges by helicopter and foot again today, and crews will do a more comprehensive ground search when the flood waters recede in a few days, Blair said.

Helicopters ferried about 255 people out of the canyon Sunday and Monday from the Havasupai Tribe's village of Supai, a remote community near the bottom of the canyon in an area west of Grand Canyon National Park headquarters. Many of the stranded tourists made their way to Supai before catching a helicopter ride to the rim.

Thunderstorms dumped 3 to 6 inches of rain on the entire region Friday and Saturday and about 2 inches more on Sunday. The storms sent a rush of water through parts of the canyon, uprooting trees and washing out trails and footbridges.

Mimi Mills, 42, of Nevada City, Calif., was stranded with 15 other river runners Saturday afternoon after a flash flood washed away their rafts. Mills said the group took shelter overnight under an overhang, but had to scramble up a cliff when another flash flood occurred in the middle of the night.

The Havasupai tribe is one of the smaller Indian communities in Arizona with some 679 members, according to Bureau of Indian Affairs estimates from 2003, the latest statistics available.

The tribe's Supai village sits in a region that's popular for hikers and river runners, with towering blue-green waterfalls. About 400 people live there year-round.

The Mining Law of 1872

By Gordon Morris Bakken
Montana; The Magazine of Western History



Briggs gold mine in California's Panamint Mountains

Debate over the repeal of the Mining Law of 1872 has been raging in the West now for almost two decades and once again reached the halls of Congress in 2007-8. As lawmakers on Capitol Hill consider revisions of the century-old law by which mining companies have been extracting valuable mineral deposits from underneath what were once pristine public lands, the debate can be couched in terms of two "poster" sites: one, the Summitville gold mine in southern Colorado's rugged San Juan Mountains, a pollution disaster of huge proportions, and the other, the Flambeau Mine in Ladysmith, Wisconsin, a prototype of environmentally sensitive mining. Which represents the reality of mining? Is the industry the dreaded Demogorgon, scooping up the natural environment in its insatiable maw? Or is it a sensitive caretaker of the Earth, complying with the regulations of a new age while seeking to supply this country with necessary resources and at the same time to profit its workers, owners, and shareholders? The images and realities of the western mining industry vary over time and place.

The Mining Law of 1872 was part of the nineteenthcentury effort, which included the Homestead Act of 1862, to encourage the settlement of the West. The mining law was specifically aimed at hastening the development of mineral lands by transferring those lands to private ownership. It provided that anyone holding a mining claim on a parcel of public land could gain absolute title to that land for as little as $2.50 an acre. It was passed at a time when the frontier was seemingly boundless and its riches endless. The policy appeared sound and sensible for its time.1

However, the Mining Law of 1872 had enormous unintended consequences as a largely unregulated mining industry caused substantial environmental degradation of public lands for more than a century. Although both Congress and the states have sought to limit the original intent-and reach-of the law, removing whole areas of public land from exploration, the mining industry was, and is, a powerful force. Industry pressure has largely succeeded in delaying implementation of many attempts at effective regulation: a piece of legislation passed in 1872 is still the law of the land.

A look at the western mining industry in recent decades shows both considerable change and adherence to the status quo. By 1995, the industry had, it seemed, accepted the reality of environmental regulations-and discovered the advantages of public relations. According to one observer, "Mining companies that not so long ago wouldn't even pay lip service to environmental values are producing videos and glossy publications touting their environmental policies and reclamation work." The same observer also reported that mining companies were willing to pay a premium to continue mining public land; the Kennecott Company, for example, agreed to pay $1 million in addition to a 3 percent royalty to the federal government as part of a deal to expand an existing gold and silver operation in Alaska.2

For all such concessions, the industry lobby was still powerful enough to thwart efforts to repeal the Mining Law of 1872, and some in the industry were still robbing both the earth and the taxpayer. The Los Angeles Times reported in 1995 that the Summitville gold mine in Colorado had taken $6 million in gold from the earth, destroyed seventeen miles of the Alamosa River, and now claimed compensation from the federal government because its cyanide heap had been declared a Superfund site.3

In the late 1990s, such excesses caught the attention of government agencies and of American citizens, including tribal members. In the Panamint Valley, neighbor to California's Death Valley, the Timbisha Shoshones, newly empowered by provisions of the California Desert Protection Act and concerned about the potential destruction of culturally significant sites, opposed operations at the Briggs gold mine. The Colville Indians of the state of Washington banned hard-rock mining on tribal lands in 1998. In New Mexico, state reclamation laws brought mining industry representatives and environmental compliance officials to the table, while-seeking to avert anything like another Summitville Mine disaster-the Summit County, Colorado, board of commissioners limited the use of cyanide in mining operations.4

In 1996, when Noranda, a Canadian firm, tried to open the New World gold mine near Cooke City, Montana, adjacent to Yellowstone National Park, the U.S. Forest Service voiced concerns over the handling of the 11 million tons of sulfide tailings that would be produced at the site. New World officials responded with a proposal to backfill the mine's shafts with the tailings and submerge the remainder in a containment pond lined with clay and plastic. Yellowstone Park superintendent Michael Finley voiced his doubts: "The public is supposed to believe we can put a potential acid slurry in an envelope and keep it there forever?"5 The Clinton administration sought to end the controversy by offering Noranda a buyout coupled with a land swap, but reactions were mixed. A Washington, D.C., environmental group claimed that "this sent a very, very loud signal to the mining industry and to the American public that there are simply some places that are unfit for mining." Others claimed that the proposed land swap sent a very different message, one proclaiming that "[w]hoever comes up with the most monstrous mining proposal gets the best deal."6 And Montana was not the only battleground. Mineral processing operations in Utah set national records for air pollution in 1996, while problems associated with mines in New Mexico and Wyoming drew local, state, and federal attention.7

Yet there were clear signs of change. The term moratorium crept into the vocabulary of the mining industry as state and federal regulations served to dilute some aspects of the Mining Law of 1872. In 1998, ASARCO, Inc., settled cases brought by the Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by agreeing to pay fines and clean up sites in Arizona and Montana. The EPA announced that this settlement made ASARCO "the first company to agree to establish a court-enforced environmental-management system applying to all of its operations across the country."8

The Homestake Mining Company's McLaughlin Mine in northern California won the praise of the Sierra Club for its operations. Homestake took a proactive approach, cleaning up three abandoned mercury mines on the property and piping the tailings slurry to a less fragile site four and a half miles away. The company collected baseline data that demonstrated environmental renewal, including the growth of native oak trees on waste dumps. In Montana's Absaroka- Beartooth Wilderness, a popular hunting and fishing destination, the Stillwater Mining Company was successfully mining palladium at the headwaters of the Boulder and Stillwater rivers. The Mineral Policy Center in Washington, D.C., applauded Stillwater as a "sustainable, environmentally sound and community supportive mine."9

In the new century, mitigation and reclamation became watchwords for the industry and new technologies helped restore mined areas. The courts hastened the turnaround. In a 2000 ruling stipulating that the Golden Sunlight Mine near Whitehall, Montana, had to totally reclaim its mine site, Judge Thomas C. Honzel noted: "[T]here is nothing in the constitution or the statutes which allows a reclamation decision to be based on . . . whether a mine operator will make a profit." He thus repudiated the premise used by the Anaconda Copper Mining Company and the federal government a century earlier to allow "the Company" to continue its environmentally destructive practices.10

Regardless of such progress, the 2000 EPA Toxics Release Inventory labeled the mining industry the country's number one toxic polluter. There were countless examples of ongoing pollution to be found. Tailings from the McLaren Mine on Soda Butte Creek near Cooke City, Montana, turned the creek red and killed all aquatic life. In New Mexico, a molybdenum mine's effluents had turned the Red River blue. Acid mine drainage plagued the Sacramento River in California. People were dying in Libby, Montana, because of a vermiculite mine.11

The federal government's response was to issue regulations that (1) required companies to submit bonds insuring their work and (2) granted the Bureau of Land Management discretion in barring mining activity that would harm wildlife habitat or scenic beauty. These small steps forward, however, came to a halt with the inauguration of the Bush administration in 2001. Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton announced a full review of all such regulations. The result of that review was the reissuance of watered-down versions, and a new mining boom was under way.12

While it's true that Superfund dollars were flowing into treatment, reclamation, and research, all of that turned on the availability of big money. In Idaho Springs, Colorado, the plant that treated the acid effluent produced by the Argo Tunnel operated at the cost of the million Superfund dollars a year. The projected cost of completing the cleanup of the Bunker Hill site in Idaho was estimated to be $1.4 billion. In 2002, the total projected cost of cleaning up abandoned mines scattered across Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and California was put at between $32 billion and $72 billion.13 That same year, the U.S. House of Representatives again debated legislation to reform the Mining Law of 1872; yet, as had happened over the 130-year history of the law, the mining lobby defeated passage of the reform bill. Still, the reform movement seemed to have gained momentum. In November 2007, with the support of a coalition of taxpayer groups, conservationists, and outdoor enthusiasts, the House passed a bill similar to that rejected in 2002. Modest as it is, the Hardrock Mining and Reclamation Act (HR 2262) proposed to end the sale of mineral lands, establish an 8 percent royalty for new mines and a 4 percent royalty for existing mines, and require reclamation bonds. The bill also required restoration of the land to premining status and the protection of fish and wildlife habitat. There are questions as to its fate when the Senate takes it up in this session.14

For the mining industry, there is no hiding from its legacy. But the companies have a choice. They can operate like the Flambeau Mine in Wisconsin, with clear environmental plans, safeguards, and a managerial commitment to vigilance. Or they can choose to operate under the Summitville model. From the perspective of environmentalists, it is clear that regulations have had a positive impact. Far less clear is whether the industry and the environmentalists can find areas of coexistence.

Recent congressional debates over reform of the Mining Law of 1872 have shown that there has been both stasis and a great deal of change in the western mining industry in the past two decades. While many mines take pride in their roles as stewards of public lands and water, others have caused substantial environmental degradation. One of the worst offenders, the Summitville gold mine in southern Colorado (above, circa 1993), created a pollution disaster of huge proportions, destroying seventeen miles of the Alamosa River.

Tribes' objections to mining operations that threaten culturally significant sites are increasingly being heard, including those of the Timbisha Shoshones, who opposed operations at the Briggs gold mine in California's Panamint Mountains.

On the opposite end of the spectrum from the Summitville mine, Montana's Stillwater palladium mine (top), located at the headwaters of the Boulder and Stillwater rivers, has a strong environmental record. The mine participates in a partnership with citizens' groups to monitor water quality to reduce harm to fisheries (bottom), invests in new technology to diminish waste tailings, and works to reduce traffic on scenic roads.

1. See Gordon Morris Bakken, The Mining Law 0/1872: Past, Politics, and Prospects (Albuquerque, N.M, forthcoming 2008).

2. Jon Christiensen, "After the Gold Rush," High Country News, April 3, 1995.

3. "Pay Me to Be Good-or I'll Sue," Los Angeles Times, March 10,1995.

4. "Timbisha Shoshone Tribe Challenges Plan for Inyo County Gold Mine," Los Angeles Times, July 29, 1995; "Tribes Strike Back at Mining," High Country News, August 31, 1998; "Closing the Wounds: A Plucky Group of New Mexico Activists Pushes Mining Reclamation into the 2lst Century," ibid., December 3, 2001; "Colorado Considers a Mining Ban," ibid. In 2004, the Board of Commissioners of Summit County, Colorado, voted to limit the use of cyanide in mining operations; an appeals court upheld the ban in 2007. "Appeals Court Upholds Colorado County Cyanide Ban on New Gold Mines," March 23, 2007, http:// mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/ en/page68?oid=

5. "Yellowstone: A Park Boss Goes to Bat for the Land," High Country News, April 29, 1996. See also "Feds Near Land-Swap Deal to Stop Controversial Mine," Madison Wisconsin State Journal, August 10, 1996; and "Yellowstone Mine a Goner," High Country News, August 19, 1996.

6. "The Bigger the Mine, the Better the Deal," High Country News, September 30,1996. The New World was not Montana's only controversial mine project. The proposed McDonald Mine near Lincoln, which threatened the Blackfoot, "a mythic river" in Montana trout circles, drew heavy fire from environmentalists because of potential pollution, and the BLM banned all new mining claims on federal lands in Montana's Sweetgrass Hills for twenty years in 1996. The central concern here was groundwater pollution and the desecration of sites sacred to American Indians. This moratorium became part of a larger effort to reform the mining law itself, an effort that eventually led to Montana voters' defeat in 2004 of the so-called Safe Mining Initiative, which would have returned the state to a regime of cyanide processing. "Federal Negligence Turns Ordinary Montanans Hostile," ibid., February 19, 1996; "Montana on the Edge: A Fight over Gold Forces the Treasure State to Confront Its Future" and "Mine Wastes Haunt a Mythic River," both in ibid., December 22, 1997; "Plan Bans Mining in Sweet Grass Hills," Bozeman (Mont.) Daily Chronicle, May 19, 1996; Mineral Policy Center, 1996 Annual Report (Washington, D.C., 1996), 2-3; Jennifer McKee, "Cyanide Ban Removal Fails," Butte (Mont.) Montana Standard, November 3, 2004; Montana River Action, "Initiative 147 Defeated," http://www. montanariveraction.org/i-147-defeated. html

7. "Toxics Pour into Our Air, Water, Land," High Country News, September 16, 1996; "On the Trail of Mining's Corporate Nomads," ibid., June 23, 1997; "While the New West Booms, Wyoming Mines, Drills . . . and Languishes," ibid., July 7,1997.

8. "Asarco Will Pay $6.4 Million in Fines, Spend $61.5 Million to Clean Two Sites," Wall Street Journal, January 26, 1998.

9. "Homestake Shows How Good a Mine Can Be," High Country News, January 19, 1998; "Mining Out the Middleman: In Montana, Locals and Industry Bypass Agencies and Forge a New Road," ibid., July 31, 2000. Over a thousand people are employed at the Stillwater mine, and buses bring them in from miles around.

10. "Reclaiming a Golden Landscape," ibid., April 10, 2000.

11. "Mining Tops EPA's Toxics Polluter List," Mineral Policy Center Newsletter, Winter 2000, 7; "Mining Legacy: Mine Tailings Leave Yellowstone at Risk Say Park Service, Environmentalists," Bozeman (Mont. ) Daily Chronicle, August 6, 2000; "The Mine That Turned the Red River Blue," High Country News, August 28, 2000; Walter Swain, "The Environmental Effects of Mining in California," California Studies Newsletter, 9 (Spring 2000), 4; "Libby's Dark Secret: For Decades, Mine Dust Has Been Killing People in Libby, Montana," High Country News, March 13, 2000; "Company Leaves Victims in Its Dust," ibid., April 23, 2001.

12. "Mining Regs Slip into the Rulebooks" and "Bush Hits the Brakes," both in High Country News, February 12, 2001; "Mining Reform Gets the Shaft," ibid., November 19, 2001; "Stop the Rollbacks," Mineral Policy Center Newsletter, Summer 2001, 1, 4-5; "Mining Boom! The Impact on Wildlands," Redroch Wilderness Newsletter, 18 (Summer 2001), 11.

13. "An Orange River Runs through It," Chronicle of Higher Education, March 22, 2002; "EPA Wants to Supersize Idaho Superfund Site," High Country News, March 4, 2002; Paul Nyden, "Rahal Bill to Control Western Mines," Charleston (W. Va.) Gazette, May 17, 2002.

14. "Creating a New Western Legacy: 1872 Mining Law Reform Bill Passes House of Representatives," Earthworks Journal, Spring 2008, 4- 5.

Gordon Morris Bakken is a professor of history at California State University, Fullerton, and the author of some twenty books, including The Mining Law of 1872: Past, Politics, and Prospects, forthcoming from the University of New Mexico Press.

Off-duty H.B. officer involved in Dairy Queen shooting

Transient in Ludlow shot in confrontation with several off-duty officers, according to reports

By JON CASSIDY
The Orange County Register

HUNTINGTON BEACH – An off-duty Huntington Beach police officer was involved in a shooting in a Dairy Queen in the High Desert city of Ludlow on Sunday night.

Lt. Mitchell O'Brien of the Huntington Beach police confirmed that one of the department's officers was involved, but said the department is not releasing the officer's name pending investigation of the incident.

Daniel Pettit, 21, a transient, was arrested, airlifted to Arrowhead Regional Medical Center to be treated for his gunshot wounds, and booked into West Valley Detention Center at 7:46 p.m. on suspicion of robbery, according to the Desert Dispatch newspaper.

The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department is investigating the shooting. A spokewoman for the department did not immediately return a phone call Monday.

Several off-duty police officers from different Southern California agencies were in the Dairy Queen at 25635 Crucero Road in Ludlow, which is 36 miles east of Barstow, when a man went behind the counter of the store and threatened employees, store manager Lorraine Flowers said.

"He was pacing back and forth, back and forth," said Flowers, who was not in the store at the time, but reviewed a tape of the incident and talked to employees who were working.

"He was acting a little bit bizarre and came behind the counter," Flowers said. "He didn't demand money or anything like that."

One employee jumped over the counter in fear, and another asked the man what he was doing.

The man grabbed a couple of screwdrivers from a shelf and told the employee, " 'If you come near me, I'm going to stab you,' " Flowers said.

Employees evacuated the store, and the officers confronted the man, ordering him to drop the screwdriver, the Daily Dispatch reported. When the man advanced on the officers brandishing a pair of scissors he had used to cut the wires for the Dairy Queen's computer system, one or more of the officers fired, according to the report.

Flowers said there were four officers involved; the Daily Dispatch said there were five.

Pettit was shot twice, Flowers said.

Ludlow - Armed Robbery, Off-Duty Officer Involved Shooting

Inland Empire News Blog

On Sunday, August 17, 2008 at approximately 3:00 pm, Daniel Pettit entered the Dairy Queen in Ludlow armed with a screw driver and attempted to rob the store. Five (5) Off-duty peace officers from five (5) different law enforcement agencies were in the store at the same time, only two of the officers were together.

Management from the Dairy Queen began moving customers from the crowded store as the off-duty officers confronted the suspect who had moved behind the clerk’s counter, still armed with a screw driver. The suspect refused to comply with orders to drop the screw driver, and instead picked up a pair of scissors and advanced toward the off-duty officers.

Ultimatley two of the five officers shot at and struck the suspect. The suspect fell to the ground but continued to fight with the officers as they detained him and awaited the arrival of San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputies and CHP.

A Sheriff’s helicopter was the first to arrive. The suspect continued to be combative as the helicopter crew took the suspect into custody. A Sheriff’s Air-Rescue helicopter responded and flew the suspect to Arrowhead Regional Medical Center where he was treated and is listed in stable condition. The suspect was booked for PC 211, Armed Robbery.

Detectives from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Homicide Detail responded to the scene for the investigaton, as is common practice in any officer involved shooting.

Anyone with additional information can contact Detective Dave Burgess or Sergeant Frank Bell of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Homicide Detail at 909-387-3589.

Public Affairs Division
(909) 387-3700

GARY PENROD, SHERIFF
SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT
c/o Public Affairs Division
655 East Third Street
San Bernardino, California 92415-0061
Telephone: (909) 387-3700

San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department
Current Press Release

PC 211 ROBBERY, OFF-DUTY OFFICER INVOLVED SHOOTING–8/18/2008
26535 CRUCERO ROAD, LUDLOW,
VICTIM: DAIRY QUEEN
SUSPECT: DANIEL LEE PETTIT, 21 YEARS OF AGE A TRANSCIENT

The desert and green power: A love triangle

The pristine Mojave. Clean energy for a city that needs it. Do environmentalists have to choose?

By Michael Martinez
Chicago Tribune

PIONEERTOWN, Calif. — April Sall is a keeper of the Mojave Desert and its mountains, tending a private conservancy in the same canyon where her grandmother homesteaded in the 1920s.

Once considered wasteland, this expanse of sunshine and wind is now a prized battleground between unlikely opponents. For generations, conservationists like Sall's family have guarded the landscape, but 21st Century demands for renewable energy are threatening to crash into the pristine desert, now deemed a gold mine for solar, wind and geothermal farms.

Unlike offshore drilling and other oil and gas ventures in which developers and environmentalists are obvious adversaries, renewable energy is increasingly pitting two kinds of green advocates against each other as the nation seeks alternative sources in the face of record oil prices and global warming, both sides say.

The issue bears upon building a new infrastructure—such as gargantuan transmission towers or wind turbines—to connect remote areas where clean energy is being harvested while conservationists vigilantly protect the land and its life.

Big plans, big stakes

Such conflicts have played out in the Midwest, but the stakes are acute in California, where new state laws demand industry cut carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and require private utilities to generate 20 percent renewable energy by 2010.

Near Pipes Canyon—where Sall, a preserve manager for the non-profit Wildlands Conservancy, resides—a group led by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is considering building a leg of transmission lines between a substation outside Palm Springs and one in Hesperia, about 80 miles away.

Called Green Path North, the lines would ultimately connect Los Angeles and other communities to the Salton Sea's 2,000 megawatts of geothermal power—enough to juice 2 million homes—as well as solar and wind plants. The utility group will select from six potential routes, including one as long as 313 miles, but a dispute over a "preferred" route through Pipes Canyon and the broader Morongo Basin has residents fuming.

"There's some conflict due to what's been described as a feeding frenzy for renewable energy in the desert," Sall, 28, said as she walked through a landscape of mesas and the Sawtooth Mountains that surround Pipes Canyon and adjacent Pioneertown. The setting is so evocative of the Old West that Roy Rogers and other cowboy actors built Pioneertown in 1946, and Hollywood made more than 200 movies and TV serials here, such as "The Gene Autry Show," "The Cisco Kid" and " Annie Oakley."

"If you're going to destroy conservation and pristine lands, then yeah, how green is it in the end?" Sall asked. She favors cities building solar plants on warehouse roofs, for example, but the utilities say the desert's geothermal fields provide a steady stream of power and do not rely on weather conditions as solar and wind power do.

Still, the dispute has led to tense meetings, and residents set up a Web site condemning the renewable-energy transmission lines through their communities.

No easy answer

As Congress and presumptive presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama struggle with the nation's energy crisis, developing alternative energy poses conflicts too.

"We're really at the forefront of a discussion that is certainly going to be repeated throughout the state of California and nationally as well," said David Nahai, general manager and chief executive officer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The nation's biggest municipal utility, the department has set a goal of providing 35 percent renewable energy by 2020, up from the current 8 percent.

"All of us are going to face this challenge of where to build transmission corridors in a way that is going to impact the local communities as little as possible," he said.

The farther the green source is from urban users, the greater the risk of controversy, industry leaders say.

"It's interesting that we consider some of these areas as pristine and we don't want to put turbines or solar or transmission lines there, but they are suitable for [housing] development. There's sort of an irony there," said Mick Sagrillo, president of the non-profit Midwest Renewable Energy Association.

In the Mojave's Morongo Basin, open space advocates fear transmission towers—as high as 220 feet, with rights of way as wide as 330 feet—would endanger a wildlife corridor. But Los Angeles officials said they haven't determined tower sizes.

The California Desert Coalition, which opposes the towers, says the Los Angeles utility identified the Morongo Basin as the "preferred" route last year when helicopters landed on private property and the utility's crews laid survey disks and markers in the area. Later the utility apologized, calling it a "premature" move.

Residents want the transmission lines confined to an existing Southern California Edison corridor along Interstate Highway 10, but those lines are running at capacity, Los Angeles officials said.

Nahai, who joined the Los Angeles utility last year after the controversial helicopter surveys, acknowledges mistrust among angry residents, whom he visited last month in a meeting that was heated and raucous.

"We need to continuously talk to people and need to gain their trust and confidence," Nahai said.

Arizona company plans to drill for silver, barite in Calico

Matt Wrye, Staff Writer
San Bernardino Sun




Calico Mining District


A silver rush might blaze into the High Desert by year's end.

International Silver Inc. (OTCBB: ISLV), based in Tuscon, Ariz., hopes to start drilling in a few months on the Laviathan Property - a 1,300-acre piece of land owned by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in the Calico Mining District near Barstow.

Silver is only the half of it, though.

The company estimates there's about 1million tons of barite-silver ore entrenched throughout 60 mining claims on Laviathan. Barite is a heavy material used in manufacturing oil drills.

While International Silver goes through its environmental review process to eventually lease the bureau's land, the company is also in escrow with a private owner on an adjacent parcel, the Langtry Property.

Langtry comprises about 400 acres, and it's estimated to contain 72 million ounces of silver and almost 3 million tons of barite.

Harold Shipes, president and CEO, said that after selling the barite, operating costs for mining the silver will be near zero.

"When silver started increasing in price, we went back and reviewed several silver properties," Shipes said. "These two caught our fancy."

Initiative on state trust land lacks enough signatures to make ballot

By Howard Fischer
Arizona Daily Star

PHOENIX — An initiative to put about a half-million acres of state trust land off-limits to development, the largest share of it in Pima County, does not have enough valid signatures to make the ballot, Secretary of State Jan Brewer concluded Friday.

Brewer said backers turned in nearly 370,000 signatures. But she said petitions with more than 33,000 of those were rejected by her office. And, a random check by county recorders of the remaining signatures ultimately concluded that another 125,580 of those should be removed either because they did not belong to registered voters or for other reasons.

The result is that the measure came up about 19,000 signatures short of the 230,047 required to put the measure before voters in November, Brewer said.

Patrick Graham, executive director of The Nature Conservancy, which wrote the measure, said his organization will take the matter to court. Graham said he believes that there are sufficient valid signatures.

That argument was reiterated by Charles Blanchard, the attorney hired by the group.

Blanchard said county recorders disqualified a large number of the names for technical reasons, like having an incorrect or missing date next to the signature. But he said courts are permitted to declare those names valid if there is "substantial compliance" with legal requirements.

Arizona got about 10 million acres from the federal government when it became a state in 1912. The state constitution requires it be either leased or sold for the highest value, with most of the funds earmarked for public education.

About 9.3 million acres remain. Proposition 103 would amend the constitution to exempt specific parcels scattered throughout the state from that requirement.

The Arizona School Boards Association voted earlier this year to oppose Prop. 103. That group's key concern is whether taking what could be highly desired parcels off the market would hurt classroom funding. The Arizona Education Association, which represents teachers, has backed the measure, saying there will be no loss.

Acreage, by county, Prop. 103 would have preserved:

• Apache 17,540
• Cochis 82,715
• Coconino 36,423
• Graham 635
• Maricopa 62,661
• Navajo 3,142
• Pima 181,391
• Santa Cruz 30,242
• Yavapai 71,563

Source: The Nature Conservancy

As Inland residents give up costly horses, U.S. government puts more up for adoption in Norco

By ALICIA ROBINSON
The Press-Enterprise


Terry Pierson / The Press-Enterprise
A burro sounds off during the preview showing of animals available in this weekend's BLM wild horse and burro adoption at Ingalls Park.

Federal efforts to find homes for wild horses may find there's little room in the Inland area, where residents are already trying to get rid of horses they can no longer afford.

The federal Bureau of Land Management rolled into Norco on Friday with 50 horses and burros, but adoptions have been declining -- falling more than 16 percent in 2005 through 2007 -- which the bureau attributes to higher fuel and feed costs. For that reason, at least 30 fewer animals than usual were brought to the annual Norco adoption event.

"There have been less people adopting because they're looking at their bank account," said Art DiGrazia, who heads wild horse and burro operations at the BLM's Ridgecrest office.

If the ads posted on the free Web site Craigslist can be seen as a sign of the times, high hay and gasoline prices are causing tough times for Inland horses and their owners.

The Craigslist Inland Empire page features dozens of listings of horses for sale, often noting that owners must sell "due to financial reasons," "because we need to downsize" or simply "can't afford to feed them all."

Norco boarding stable owner Kevin Bash said he's seen hay prices climb from around $15 a bale in 2007 to $18 or more today, and he hears they may go as high as $25 a bale by this fall.

"It's not just middle-class people (being affected), it's everyone," said Kim Reynolds, who placed several online ads to sell the rescued horses she keeps at her ranch in Murrieta in southwestern Riverside County. "The prices have decreased, and there's not a lot of people standing there wanting them."

Rescues Overwhelmed

While Inland animal control officials said they haven't seen a dramatic increase in horse neglect cases, some rescue operations have seen a spike in need. San Bernardino County Animal Care and Control handled twice as many stray or abandoned horses in the year ending June 30 as it had the previous year, Division Chief Brian Cronin said.

When Cronin's agency can't find homes for horses, it turns to private rescue groups, some of which are swamped.

"The need for helping these animals has far exceeded their ability," he said of the rescues.

Colton boarding stable operator Cheryl Musee has been selling horses whose owners have failed to pay their bills and stopped returning her calls. State law permits this.

"Everybody that was boarding the horses decided that feeding their families was more important than feeding their horses so I kind of got stuck with them," she said.

One customer with five horses gave three of them away because he couldn't afford the board bill, Musee said.

The Bureau of Land Management hasn't resorted to giving horses away, but its budget is being taxed by the 33,000 roaming horses and burros and the 30,000 animals in holding facilities on federal lands it manages in 10 states.

That has put more emphasis on adoptions. Early interest seemed high Friday at Norco's Ingalls Park, where about a dozen people were viewing the wild horses before the scheduled preview event even began. But several of the visitors said they were just looking.

"There's no market for horses of any kind right now," said Cindi Paine, a resident of Pedley in northwestern Riverside County who had stopped by Ingalls Park to see the wild horses but didn't plan to adopt one. "I hope they all get homes but with the recession going (on), I just don't see it."

Some commodities experts predict that development of farmland, drought and growth of grain for biofuels will keep hay prices high in the near future, and other costs of keeping a horse such as farrier and veterinary bills have risen.

But opinions are mixed on the long-term effect on the recreational horse industry.

"I think it's going to go on a straight downhill slide," said Rick Boenisch, a livestock auctioneer in the High Desert community of Pinon Hills. He also helps place unwanted horses for a small fee.

"The average homeowner that just wants to have a horse for their kid, it's just not going to happen," he said.

Others said people who truly want to keep their horses will find a way to do it, regardless of their economic situation.

Corona resident Alesha Watts, a self-described housewife and mother, already has one horse, and she visited Ingalls Park to pick out a mustang to adopt. The expense isn't a concern, Watts said, because she's willing to make sacrifices.

"I'll eat beans and drink water to make sure my animals eat," she said.

Still calling 'Action!' in Pioneertown

In 1945, when Hollywood was grinding out Westerns on a regular basis, Roy Rogers led a band of cohorts and founded the town as a live-in movie set

Judith Salkin
The Desert Sun

The U.S. Post Office in Pioneertown is the most photographed post office in the country according to a plaque on a historical marker outside the building. (Crystal Chatham, The Desert Sun)

You don't have to go to Los Angeles to discover a bit of Hollywood history.

Just take the drive up Highway 62, make a left at the Water Canyon Coffee Co. and head up the road to Pioneertown.

In 1945, when Hollywood was grinding out Westerns on a regular basis, Roy Rogers led a band of cohorts that included actors Dick Curtis and Russell Hayden, the Sons of the Pioneers (Roy's backup band), Bud Abbott (of Abbott and Costello) and gossip columnist Louella Parsons, and founded the town as a live-in movie set.

Back then, Pioneertown boasted a post office (still in use and according to a historical marker, the most photographed U.S. Post Office in the country), a cantina, general store and motel, where cast and crew would hunker down during shoots.

According to the Pioneertown Web site, it was almost called “Rogersville” in honor of the famed cowboy.

“But after some spirited discussion we named it Pioneertown in honor of The Sons of the Pioneers,” wrote Hayden, who died in Palm Springs in 1981.

“That way, no one man was getting top billing.”

Today, the town is a rustic reminder of gentler days — and of the primeval forces Mother Nature can unleash.

Two years ago, the Sawtooth fire ravaged the foothills behind Yucca Valley. Miraculously, Pioneertown survived. But there's much more to see than nature renewing herself in this high desert community.

Shacking up

Ernest “Ernie” Kester, who along with his wife Carol owned the Pioneertown Motel for a number of years, is a collector of all things Pioneertown.

If you find him on the streets (he's one of the members of the Pioneertown Posse that performs gunfights) he can tell you just about anything you want to know about the town.

“All the old stars — Gene Autry, Duncan Reynaldo (The Cisco Kid), Russell Haney, Clayton Moore — they all worked up here,” he said.

If you're looking for a place to stay while exploring the area, there's the Pioneertown Lodge and Stable, owned by Bill and Peggy McKinley.

“Roy's (Rogers) was number 10 and room 9 was the club room where they all got together after a day of shooting,” Peggy McKinley said.

The McKinleys have been making some changes, including adding a stable and a pavilion for special events. This weekend, the lodge is holding its first kids' riding camp, complete with barbecue and Sunday brunch.

Pappy and Harriet's

Today's Pioneertown is a charming place. You can wander around Mane Street, see a staged gunfight, head north to Pipes Canyon, or stop in at Pappy and Harriet's Pioneertown Palace for a long neck and live music.

According to its Web site, Pappy's began as a one-pump gas station with a dual purpose. The facade was used as a set for westerns well into the 1950s. In 1972, Harriet's mother, Francis Aleba, and her husband, John, purchased the building and opened “Cantina,” a biker bar that became a destination for bikers traveling to Big Bear and Las Vegas.

In 1982, Harriet and her husband, Claude “Pappy” Allen, opened “Pappy & Harriet's Pioneertown Palace,” served Tex-Mex and brought in live music.

More than 25 years later, Pappy's is still the place to be for good grub and entertainment.

Regular performers include The Thrift Store All-Stars, Ritmo Loco and Ted Quinn.

And you never know who's going to show up on stage — Eric Burdon, Leon Russell, Shooter Jennings, Lucinda Williams, Johnette Napolitano (of Concrete Blonde) and even Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant.

Bill would protect huge chunk of California land

By Rob Hotakainen
Sacramento Bee

WASHINGTON – If California's Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer gets her way, Congress will vote next month to designate nearly 800,000 acres of California land – an area larger than Rhode Island – as federally protected wilderness.

The House has already signed off on some of the land, giving the designation for nearly a half-million acres in six states. Roughly 60 percent of the land approved by the House is in California.

While few pieces of major legislation are moving in the current Congress, wilderness bills have been a notable exception, and it has been one of the most striking changes caused by the Democratic takeover of Congress last year.

By the time the current session ends, environmentalists say, there's a good chance that an additional 2 million acres of wilderness could be declared off-limits to development. That would double the amount set aside in the last two-year congressional session, when Republicans were in the majority.

No other state has as much at stake as California. If approved, it would be the largest expansion of protected wilderness in the state since 1994, when Congress preserved more than 7 million acres by establishing Death Valley and Joshua Tree national parks and Mojave National Preserve.

This year's largest proposal for California, sponsored by Boxer and co-sponsored by Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, would designate more than 470,000 acres in Mono, Inyo and Los Angeles counties as wilderness, along with 52 miles of Amargosa River in Death Valley and Owens River's headwaters. It's called the Eastern Sierra and Northern San Gabriel Wild Heritage Act.

"It's an historic opportunity, and I think it hearkens back to the values people had when the Wilderness Act was first published in 1964," said Barbara Hill, executive director of the Oakland-based California Wilderness Coalition.

The Wilderness Act, signed into law by President Johnson, closes all designated lands to commercial and recreational development. It defines a wilderness area as "an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain."

The land can be used only for such things as hiking, backpacking, horseback riding, hunting or fishing. There can be no mining, no energy exploration, no vehicles and no permanent camps or structures.

Opponents say it's elitist to keep recreational users, including snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles, off public lands intended to benefit everyone.

"We're very concerned with this big mass push for wilderness that's going on right now," said Greg Mumm, executive director of the Idaho-based Blue Ribbon Coalition, which wants to keep public lands open to motorcyclists, ATV riders, snowmobilers and others. "There are better choices in today's world for protecting that land and preserving the access that's so needed for recreation."

As members of Congress gear up to debate the plans when they return to work in September, environmentalists are banking on support from an unlikely source to get them approved: the White House.

While the Bush administration has proposed oil drilling in the Alaska wilderness and backs a plan to allow loaded guns in national parks, many environmentalists believe Bush would sign wilderness bills as a way to put a stamp on the U.S. park system in the closing months of his presidency.

Getting this far has been a long fight for environmentalists, who worked hard to influence the 2006 elections. Not only was Boxer elevated to the head of the Senate's environment committee, the elections brought the defeat of their biggest political enemy, Republican Rep. Richard Pombo of Tracy, who opposed most wilderness bills and had the power to block them.

Rep. Nick Rahall, D-West Virginia, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said his predecessor Pombo "chose to ignore wilderness proposals even when there was a great deal of consensus in support of them."

Rahall said Congress is now working in a bipartisan manner "to ensure that the land is preserved as God intended."

The House has already approved two California-specific bills, both in Boxer's plan. One bill would preserve nearly 115,000 acres of public land within Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park, including Redwood Mountain Grove and Old Hockett Trail, one of the first cross-Sierra routes in the southern Sierra. The other bill would protect nearly 200,000 acres in Riverside County that provide habitat for bighorn sheep, desert tortoises, bald eagles and mule deer.

Four California representatives – Democrat Jim Costa of Fresno and Republicans Mary Bono of Palm Springs, Howard "Buck" McKeon of Santa Clarita and Devin Nunes of Tulare – have introduced companion wilderness bills in the House. Feinstein is co-sponsor of both the House-passed bills in the Senate.

Environmentalists say the fight should come to a head in the Senate in mid-September, when the Energy and Natural Resources Committee decides whether to include the proposals in a public lands bill.

Boxer has already run into opposition from Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn, who argues the federal government is struggling to maintain its parks. If more wilderness areas are created, he said, states should pay for their upkeep, not federal taxpayers.

Backers of the legislation say there would be no added costs because the federal government owns the property and the only question is how to use the land.

Dangerous mines remain in county

State officials cap old shafts, urge curious to keep out



by Sarah Miley
Tooele Transcript-Bulletin




Tooele County, Utah (in red)


Tooele County’s history is rich with mining. Place names like Ophir, Jacob City and Gold Hill evoke images of days gone by when mining was an economic mainstay and a way of life. But this heritage has also left the county with a legacy of hidden dangers, according to state mining officials.

According to the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining, there are an estimated 17,000 abandoned mines statewide. Hundreds of those are located within Tooele County. Problems start, however, when the lure of those mines attract backcountry recreationalists.

“Tooele County is heavily populated in abandoned mines,” said Jim Springer, spokesman for the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining.

Springer said there are typically two groups of people who go into these mines: those who may stumble onto an old mine while perhaps recreating, and those who may explore old mines as a hobby.

The state’s Abandoned Mine Reclamation Program, which was initiated in 1982, aims to close mines that pose the greatest risk to people who may choose to access them. The state also conducts the ‘stay out and stay alive’ campaign, started in 1985, to educate people about the dangers of an abandoned mine.

Completed reclamation projects in Tooele County include Serviceberry Canyon, Jacob City and another recently finished this spring at Gold Hill, which is south of Wendover.

The Gold Hill project involved closing less than 100 mines. Hundreds more there have not been touched yet, Springer said.

“There are probably more that should be done in that area, but there’s a limited number of mines that can be sealed each year with funds and staff available to do the work,” Springer said. “Usually the Abandoned Mine Reclamation is able to close 200 to 300 mines a year. With 17,000 scattered around the state, you can see it would take a while to get to them all.”

Another project in the Lakeside Mountains is planned to close 33 mine openings, which are mostly on BLM land. Springer said most of these will be backfilled, but a few will be grated.

Funding for these reclamation projects comes from a tax on coal production in the state. The allotment this year, according to Springer, is about $3.5 million.

Mines that are to be sealed are prioritized, for example by public safety hazards. But before any work is done, there’s an evaluation of the site, Springer said.

“The whole area is evaluated in regards to history, endangered species and wildlife,” said Springer, adding the National Historic Preservation Act, state historian, archeologists and the Environmental Protection Agency are all consulted.

“We don’t want to destroy the historical flavor if there’s some history to be preserved there,” Springer said.

Springer said while the division seals mines, private landowners may do additional work, such as removing buildings, because there are liability issues. Entering a mine, whether on private or federal land, is almost always a trespassing violation without the permission of the landowner.

The division’s official position is abandoned mines are unsafe, however, if a landowner willingly accepts liability and lets people go in and explore a mine that’s OK.

“We wish there were more opportunities for enthusiasts to do just that,” he said, adding he knows of four mines in Colorado that are open for exploration on a commercial basis, while there are currently none in Utah.

Specific entries to abandoned mines can be closed several ways. The easiest, Springer said, is to backfill the hole with dirt. That’s usually done in instances where there’s not a lot of history to be maintained at the site. Or, a block, such as a brick wall, can be put up to prevent access. If wildlife is involved — like bats that often live in mines — a bat grate, which looks like a jail cell door, allows bats to come in and out of the mine, while preventing people from getting in.

Springer said working mines can be dangerous — which is why they’re regulated by the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration — but abandoned mines are infinitely more so.

“Support timbers become old and can be rotten, and no longer support the weight of the mine itself,” Springer said. “They can be subject to cave-ins or rocks sluffing off and falling in on you.”

Inside a mine, there is an ardit — a mine opening going horizontally in the mountain — and once inside there can be shafts or winzes, which are guts that go straight down. Sometimes these can be covered by old, rotten boards and some are hundreds of feet deep. There’s also the possibility of bad air.

“Many mines required at one time or another machinery to pump oxygen into them,” Springer said. “It’s possible there’s just bad air in an abandoned mine, no longer any oxygen, and that could overtake you before you noticed. You can black out and suffocate.”

In addition, explorers can run into old explosives, and dynamite that’s been left for many years becomes unstable, Springer said.

“Of course animals can take up residence that may not get along with you,” he said. “Little things like that.”

According to the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining, since the early 1980s, 10 Utahns have died and another two dozen others have been injured while exploring or happening upon these abandoned mines — and Tooele County is not exempt.

On Jan. 13, 1996, Jeremiah Etherington died after falling in a mine near Stockton called the Honorine Mine. Robert Bartholomew was killed in the Thorpe Hills, near Five-Mile Pass, when he drove his ATV into a 50-foot deep mine shaft on Jan. 23, 1999. In 1971, there was a fatality at a Gold Hill mine when a man died from a rock fall. And on Sept. 23, 1989, Joshua Dennis was lost for five days at Hidden Treasure Mine near Stockton and rescued after an intensive search, according to Springer.

Springer said it’s best for people to enjoy the history of the mines at a distance.

“You still get the feel and historical flavor without actually entering the mine,” he said. “It’s best to enjoy the area that way. If you come across an old mine, we’d be happy to hear about it.”

Ranchers, environmentalists show support for initiative

By Jaime Richardson
Green Valley News






George Monzingo, left, who runs a cattle ranch between Tombstone and St. David, talks to Sonoita rancher Mac Donaldson. Donaldson organized a meeting at Empire Ranch Tuesday to discuss a proposed State Trust land initiative that will affect those leasing in Pima and Santa Cruz counties. At right are Dennis and Deb Moroney, who raise cattle in McNeil, Ariz. (Jaime Richardson Green Valley News)

Area ranchers met with environmentalists in Sonoita on Tuesday to discuss a proposed measure that would set aside 570,000 acres of State Trust land for conservation.

About 30 supporters of Proposition 103: the Our Lands, Our Schools Initiative, gathered on a cloudy day at the sprawling Empire Ranch in Sonoita, a rural community about 40 miles southeast of Green Valley.

The historic ranch sits at the heart of the 42,000-acre Las Cienegas National Conservation Area, on public lands acquired and administered since 1988 by the Bureau of Land Management. Ranching there continues under a grazing permit held by John Donaldson and his son Mac, of Sonoita.

“In 150 years, what will our great-grandchildren have here in Arizona?” said Mac Donaldson, who helped organize Tuesday's gathering. “Will they have more Phoenix, more Mesa? Or will they be able to have something like this?”

A similar initiative, Proposition 105, the State Trust Lands Act, failed to make the ballot in 2006.

The main purpose of Our Lands, Our Schools, would be to set aside 570,000 of the state's 9.3 million acres of State Trust land for conservation, explained Patrick Graham, state director of the Nature Conservancy and chair of the initiative committee. This would ensure that those acres could never be sold for development, he said.

Existing leases and rights-of-way would not be affected, and would continue to generate revenue for the trust.

The more than half-a-million acres were selected based on their ecological significance and proximity to state and federal parks and wildlife management areas. This would include 50,135 acres in the Santa Rita Experimental Range, 2,073 acres in the West Desert Preserve, 30,172 acres in the Sahuarita Mountains, 8,768 acres in the Santa Cruz Wildlife Corridor, and 3,072 acres adjacent to Patagonia Lake State Park.

About 85 percent of State Trust lands are leased for grazing, but there is an increasing pressure to sell that land to developers, said Graham.

“These lands are increasingly being converted into subdivisions,” he said. “This initiative is a unique opportunity for landowners, conservationists, the business community and educators to form a coalition and try to do something for Arizona that will benefit us for the next century.”

Some of the money from the sale of State Trust lands goes to public schools in Arizona.

The Arizona Education Association supports the initiative, but much of the education community is split, says Patrick Bray, deputy director of government affairs for the Phoenix-based Arizona Cattlemen's Association, who voted to take an official stance against the initiative. One reason for their decision is their belief that the initiative will hurt funding for public schools.

“We're in favor of the mission of the trust, which is the highest and best possible use of the land,” said Bray. He said that State Trust land is not public land, and should not be treated as such. “There’s no reason that 570,000 acres should be set aside and not paid for. If so, the trust should be compensated somehow.”

The Cattlemen's Association is run by a 25-member board made up of representatives from every county in Arizona. Bray said it took members around 60 days to come up with their decision, which they didn’t take lightly.

“When a trust owns those lands, and you have to answer to 12 beneficiaries (one of which is the Arizona public school system), you should pay for those lands,” said Bray.

But Graham says the schools will still get revenue from the conservation lands.

“Those people in the education community that have taken the time to understand that the trust is not harmed by this measure are very supportive of it,” he said.

A representative from the office of Gov. Janet Napolitano who attended the meeting said the governor is in support of the initiative. U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords sent a spokesperson to collect information, though Democrat Giffords has yet to reveal her positions on any of the initiatives up for ballot.

Joining those representing the Nature Conservancy, Cienega Watershed Partnership and Sonoran Institute were ranchers from throughout Santa Cruz and Pima counties, from as far north as Aravaipa Canyon, about 50 miles northeast of Tucson. Many of the ranchers have lands that would be included in the 570,000 acres. Others came just to bring back information to share with their neighbors and fellow cattlemen.

“Many ranchers and environmentalists have the same goals, so why not work together, instead of against one another?” said Mac Donaldson.

“I have a long-term concern for the health of our state — that's why I’m supporting this. And I’m attempting to show that there are grazers here who support it, and have some sense of what the future can bring both for us and for Arizona.”

Judge Dismisses Suit To Open Roads In Park Wilderness

Death Valley National Park
National Park News


On August 12th, a federal judge yesterday largely threw out a lawsuit filed by Inyo County, California, to open highways through remote roadless areas of Death Valley National Park.

Inyo County officials had hoped to take control of three routes — little-used paths and canyon bottoms — using a repealed, 19th-century right-of-way law known as R.S. 2477. The judge ruled that the county waited too long to assert its claims to the three roads within the national park because they were included in wilderness study areas by the federal Bureau of Land Management in 1979. The court agreed with arguments by conservation groups and the National Park Service that the county's claims were barred because it had failed to file suit within the 12-year statute of limitations. The court thus dismissed the county's claims to all of one route and most of the other two routes.

The ruling will protect desert tortoise, bighorn sheep, and remote archeological and cultural sites within Death Valley National Park, the largest national park in the lower 48 states.

Six conservation groups – the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, California Wilderness Coalition, National Parks Conservation Association, Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the Inyo, all represented by Earthjustice, a non-profit environmental law firm – intervened to support the National Park Service and to ensure that these public lands in Death Valley are protected from off-road vehicle damage.

"This is a great day for Death Valley," said Ted Zukoski, an Earthjustice attorney representing the conservation groups. "When Congress made Death Valley a national park in 1994, it set aside these areas for all Americans to enjoy as quiet, natural, and free from damaging dirt bikes, ATVs, and other off-road vehicles. The court's ruling will help ensure that Congress's promise to the American people will be kept."

"This decision protects the unique biological resources in Death Valley National Park from off-road vehicle abuse," said Lisa Belenky, senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. "The court rightly found that the county sat back and waited too long before raising these issues. The county was well aware that the federal government intended to protect the resources of these areas in 1979, when the wilderness study areas were designated."

"I'll bet the horned lizards and chuckwallas are dancing in the desert washes right now," said Paul McFarland, executive director of Friends of the Inyo, a Bishop-based public lands conservation organization. "Hopefully, this sound decision will let us move beyond bogus road claims to focus on working together to better sustain one of our most valuable assets here in eastern California — our wild desert."

U.S. District Judge Anthony W. Ishii said the county was on notice in 1979 that the federal government intended to restrict activities in these areas and would not allow the claimed routes to be paved or upgraded in a way that would impair wilderness values. The county sought rights-of-way in hopes of tearing down Park Service barriers and initially asked for the right to build two-lane highways in roadless desert canyons and valleys. Those actions would permanently disrupt the desert stillness and threaten imperiled desert tortoise, as well as one of the park's most important petroglyph sites.

Greenwater Canyon, on the east side of the National Park, is rugged, narrow, and deep, carving a twisting course through volcanic rock. Forty-two prehistoric sites containing more than 300 important petroglyphs are found in the Canyon, which also provides habitat for desert bighorn sheep and desert tortoise.

Before the canyon was included in the park in 1994, land managers recognized its importance by naming it an "Area of Critical Environmental Concern" to protect "prehistoric occupation sites still important to Native Americans." One of Inyo County's claimed "highways" would have cut through the canyon for about 10 miles.

The court's decision threw out the county's claim to all of the routes inside the canyon.

Greenwater Valley, to the south of Greenwater Canyon, is covered with lush, dense vegetation, including creosote, sagebrush, bunch grasses, seasonal wildflowers, and cactus. The area includes important habitat for the Black Mountain bighorn sheep herd and desert tortoise.

When Inyo County illegally bulldozed a three-mile route across an abandoned jeep track in 2004, the Park Service revegetated both ends of the route to restore the area's natural values.

The court's decision threw out Inyo County's claim to all of the route.

Last Chance Canyon, at the northern end of Death Valley, is a remote and scenic area that is home to cougar, deer, coyote, and badger. Inyo County claims a 10-mile "highway" runs up the canyon, which narrows into a boulder-choked, tree-strewn gulch. At the head of this gully, the county claims their "highway" ascends a nearly vertical 50- to 200-foot ridge of unstable rock. Cutting a two-lane highway across this rugged terrain would permanently and significantly scar the landscape. The court's decision threw out Inyo County's claim to all but the northern half-mile of the route.

All three of these areas were inventoried and found to be "roadless" in 1979, and were designated as wilderness when Death Valley National Park was created in 1994.

Inyo County is one of many governmental agencies and private organizations that are laying claim to federal lands under a repealed Civil War-era law known as R.S. 2477.

An endangered act

EDITORIAL
Los Angeles Times

A new proposal would let all kinds of federal agencies make decisions about what species to protect.

The Bush administration has shown extraordinary disdain for the Endangered Species Act over the years, dragging its heels on listing some species (polar bear, sage grouse, wolverine) and removing vital protections for others (gray wolf, arroyo toad, red-legged frog, spotted owl). Time after time, it has been pulled into court for flouting the law, and most of the time it has lost and been ordered to do its job.

But regard for endangered species hit a low point this week, when Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne proposed a regulatory change that would undermine not just case-by-case decision-making but the law's basic procedures. According to the proposal, federal agencies that wanted to start a new project -- a road, say, or a dam -- could decide on their own that it wouldn't harm an imperiled species, in which case they wouldn't have to consult with the wildlife biologists at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or National Marine Fisheries Service who are the experts on these matters.

Other agencies not only lack such expertise, they have a built-in conflict of interest. We wouldn't think of letting an oil company decide whether a new offshore rig might harm the ocean; we wouldn't allow a pharmaceutical company to market a new medication on its say-so that the drug is safe. Why would we let the Department of Transportation build a new road through the habitat of the California gnatcatcher because its engineers claim that the project would do no harm?

Under Kempthorne's proposal, a project could be halted or scaled down only if it was "reasonably certain" to harm endangered species; currently, scientists must show that damage is "reasonably foreseeable." The proposal also would make it harder for scientists to consider the cumulative effects of various projects.

Because of a 30-day public comment period, instead of the usual 60 or 90 days, the rule could be adopted and in place before the presidential election. Though it might well be overturned by Congress, the courts or perhaps a new administration, the process would take months, giving federal agencies the chance to push through their projects. That makes this proposal a particularly cynical move, designed for expediency, not good government.

Roadless rule is tossed out again

Western state set to rewrite rules on use of 9.3 million acres of public land

Associated Press

CHEYENNE, WYO. -- A federal judge in Wyoming has overturned a Clinton-era ban on road construction in nearly 60 million acres of national forest, extending a long-running dispute over U.S. Forest Service rules for large sections of undeveloped land.

U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer's ruling on Tuesday is the latest turn in a legal battle over the Clinton administration rule that limited logging and other development in roadless areas that make up nearly a third of national forest land.

Brimmer issued a permanent injunction against the so-called "roadless rule," saying that the ban was enacted in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act and the Wilderness Act.

"The Forest Service, in an attempt to bolster an outgoing President's environmental legacy, rammed through an environmental agenda that itself violates the country's well-established environmental laws," Brimmer wrote.

The ruling reflects a similar decision Brimmer issued in 2003 in response to a lawsuit filed by Wyoming challenging the roadless rule. Brimmer's 2003 ruling was rendered moot when the Bush administration decided not to appeal and instead issued its own rules for roadless areas.

Conservation groups and attorneys general from Oregon, Washington, California and New Mexico later challenged the Bush policy, which required governors to petition the federal government to protect roadless areas in their states.

In 2006, U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Laporte in San Francisco reinstated the 2001 rule created by the Clinton administration. That prompted Wyoming to renew its complaint in federal district court.

On Tuesday, environmentalists vowed to appeal Brimmer's ruling to the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, while also downplaying the scope of the decision.

Mike Anderson, an attorney with The Wilderness Society, said it was his opinion that the California decision was still in effect.

"It is not in any way overturned or compromised by Judge Brimmer's decision in Wyoming today," Anderson said. "What it does do is create two conflicting court decisions in different federal courts, different states, both issuing decisions with nationwide impact."

Wyoming Attorney General Bruce Salzburg praised Brimmer's ruling, saying the injunction was appropriate "in light of the potential harm the roadless rule poses to our national forests due to beetle infestation and forest fires."

"We anticipate an appeal by either the United States or one or more of the interveners," Salzburg said. "As such, we consider the matter still in litigation."

Attempts to reach the Forest Service for comment Tuesday evening were unsuccessful.

Observers said it was unclear whether Brimmer's ruling would have any effect on the two states -- Idaho and Colorado -- that are working their way through the Bush administration's policy for setting aside roadless areas. Neither state has completed the process.

"I would say it further clouds the legal background for those states' rule making," Anderson said.

In Idaho, federal officials said last month that they hoped to issue a final draft rule for the state's roadless backcountry in September and send it to President Bush for approval. Idaho is home to 9.3 million acres of roadless lands.

"My assumption is they will still proceed with rule making for Idaho," said Jonathan Oppenheimer, of the Boise-based Idaho Conservation League.

The singing dunes

DESERT RATTLER



By Ken Layne
LA City Beat




"Buddy"


On a cool morning, no deadlines, empty house, I throw a sleeping bag and two bottles of wine in the truck and head up the 15. The interstate is relatively sane, what with the crashing economy and $4 gasoline. Plus, it’s early Saturday morning. The Vegas-bound mooks headed out on Friday night.

The AM real-estate show from Las Vegas says everything’s “bad and getting worse.” I switch to the Mojave National Preserve information station once I see the sign in Barstow. There’s something about a scratchy recording of a lady ranger reading aloud from a Park Service brochure. She lists all the terrible ways one can die on a routine desert outing, and how to prevent them: Bring water, wear a hat. Goddammit, where’s my hat? I stop at a Baker gift shop next to the old Bun Boy-turned-Big Boy diner, the giant thermometer letting people know what it’s like outside of the car, and find an ugly camouflage Chinese-sweatshop wide-brimmed hat for $12 that just barely fits my skull.

Minutes later, the simple concrete Mojave National Preserve entrance sign welcomes me to 1.6 million acres of extraordinary desert. There is no entrance fee, no line of RVs, no Park Service booth, no Smokey Bear ranger to hand you a brochure. The frantic hassle of Interstate 15 and the Vegas-L.A. corridor is gone, immediately replaced by silence and creosote and sand, the Marl Mountains rising up to the southeast and Kelso Peak straight ahead. It is one of those Panavision Western Widescreen Views, and it’s just a few minutes away from one of the busiest interstates in the West, and if you stop your car in the middle of the two-lane to investigate a Red Racer snake zooming along the roadside, there’s nobody around to complain.

What I need to see is a desert tortoise, in the wild. I started coming out here in the 1980s and I’ve never come across one of the Living Fossils. I must see tortoises, while we still have some. They used to be so common in springtime that campers would fill their pockets with the babies and imprison the gentle critters as backyard pets.

But it’s too late today, and the sun is already cooking through the morning cloud cover. I try various dirt roads, put on my dumb hat, walk down washes and trails, seeing many burrows but no actual shelled denizens.

Time to hike the Kelso Dunes. I take Kelbaker Road across the Union Pacific tracks – America’s busiest freight corridor runs through the middle of Mojave National Preserve – while it’s still cool enough for a pleasant walk. It’s a gorgeous 79-degree Saturday and there are no cars parked at the trailhead. When you add Las Vegas and Phoenix to the mix, 30 million people live within a few hours’ drive of this magnificent park, and nobody’s here. I don’t know whether to laugh or curse. Ah, right. I laugh.

These are Singing Dunes. They make strange music, punctuated by strange booms. I trudge through clouds of sand-colored grasshoppers, the sand whistling like some melancholy gypsy violin. There are brave and beautiful flowers still bursting from these harsh sand hills. Some are tiny and lie close to the ground, others are bursting from brush and stem and dune weeds housing happy little birds. I see a vague movement under a fuzzy gray bush, and hold my camera over it. A Mojave fringe-toed lizard shakes its tail and dives into the sand.

After I’ve trudged back through the sand, I see exactly two cars – an elitist Subaru and four-wheel-drive BMW – parked at the trail head. The occupants must’ve taken another route up the hill. What to make of this scarcity of people upon these rare lands set aside for people to enjoy? Why isn’t anyone outside?

The trail and the campfire used to be common ground for common middle-class people, just two decades ago. Now we’re bored of silence, scared of bugs, terrified of snakes, and only understand wildlife in lurid teevee terms. “Toddler eaten by hungry coyote five years ago; fat mom was inside stripping for Web-Cam.”

Gasoline prices and the current Economic Collapse play their part, but the abandonment of the unmotorized outdoors has been happening since that other George Bush was president. The U.S. population has added 75 million people since the 1980s, the decade in which human use of national parks, national forests, and state parks peaked.

Up at dawn, I’m headed down Morningstar Mine Road, in the northeast part of the preserve, the Ivanpah Valley, looking for tortoises, looking for a dirt road just beyond the power lines, but end up over the railroad track and nearly to the mine. I backtrack, fail, and finally give up and take the dirt road beneath the massive high-tension double power line towers that cross this valley like giant robot monsters on their way to destroy Los Angeles.

There’s a mild buzz, from the electricity surging through those lines a hundred feet above me. This is absurd. Coke cans and beer bottles and a rubber mudflap from a pickup truck line the sandy utility road, it’s all horrible ... and there’s a tortoise, lumbering along. I shut the engine, grab my camera, get out as slowly and quietly as possible, and approach the desert tortoise.

He (she?) looks up, blinking in the sun.

“Don’t mind me, buddy,” I say, snapping pictures. “Just getting your picture. For the yearbook.”

Blink.

It’s a full-sized adult tortoise, beautiful burnished brown plates, fine patterns, and shiny varnish. About two feet long, eight inches tall, the elephant feet strong and steady. This one’s been breakfasting on little yellow flowers, one sitting atop the shell.

I head down a jackrabbit trail away from the power lines, to give it space. I count a hundred burrows in a few minutes of walking, noting the fresh tracks outside many of them, and the perfect situation of flowers and desert grasses growing just outside of so many of them, the tortoise’s personal salad bar.

But it’s already too hot, and for the moment the sky is perfectly clear and blue, and there’s no breeze or shade. I should’ve been up an hour before dawn. Driving slowly back to Nipton, I watch the rocky road shoulders. There’s another one, munching baby-blue flowers a foot away from the pavement. Good god, man, get off the road!

I pull over and walk back to see this buddy. It is shy, unlike the first one, and retracts head and legs into a yellow-green shell. We have no business moving them, for their own safety, as the tortoise has a peculiar habit of pissing itself when frightened – and that urine is its water supply during the long dry summer.

There’s one more tortoise on the roadside, crushed by a car.