ROCKY MOUNTAIN LAND USE GROK

Mining Stakes its Claim Again

By David Frey, 10-17-07

The Old West economy is alive and well in the New West. The Los Angeles Times writes about the boom in mining claims across the West. Some are on the fringe of national parks, including the Grand Canyon and Arches. The Grand Canyon has 815 mining claims within five miles of its border, and 2,000 claims within 10 miles, writes the Times. Arches National Park in Utah has more than 1,200 mining claims within 10 miles.

Mining claims are up an average of 81 percent in 12 Western states, the paper writes, led by Colorado, with a 239 percent jump, and Wyoming with a 178 percent increase. Even EBay is selling claims.

The boom comes as Congress is looking at an update on the 1872 mining law. Hard rock miners don’t pay the royalties that energy industries pay. One possible revision would change that, and give some weight to environmental issues like water quality and habitat.

Why the new rush? Prices of gold, copper, uranium and other metals are up, says the Times, thanks partly to demand from China and other developing nations.

One more salvo from an Old West economy that continues to transform the New West landscape.

Tired of environmentalists staking the high ground on protecting the fought-over Roan Plateau in western Colorado from natural gas development, the energy industry is firing back. The industry-funded nonprofit Americans for American Energy says drilling the Roan would reap a windfall for the state -- over $1 billion in the first year of pumping alone. That’s well more than the Bureau of Land Management ever figured.

But there’s a catch. Ask the group’s chief, Greg Schnacke, who left his post with the Colorado Oil and Gas Association to launch the organization, who conducted the study and Schnacke gets quiet. When the Denver Post asked, the paper reports, Schnacke protected his sources, “because they may bid on leases that will allow them to harvest natural gas” from under the Roan.

Another industry group, the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States, jumped to AAE’s defense. So did Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo. Not so, his colleague, Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo., who inserted wording into the House version of the energy bill to nix drilling on the Roan for a year.

But some Old West economies are adapting to a changing landscape. So writes the New York Times, which stopped by Whitefish, Mont., for a glimpse of the landlords of the New West.

“The rise of a new landed gentry in the West is partly another expression of gilded age economics in America; the super-wealthy elite wades ashore where it will,” writes Kirk Johnson.

“With the timber industry in steep decline, recreation is pushing aside logging as the biggest undertaking in the national forests and grasslands, making nearby private tracts more desirable — and valuable, in a sort of ratchet effect — to people who enjoy outdoor activities and ample elbow room and who have the means to take title to what they want.”

The Times cites a not-yet-published Forest Service study. “More than 1.1 million new families became owners of an acre or more of private forest from 1993 to 2006 in the lower 48 states, a 12 percent increase,” writes the paper of record. “And almost all the net growth, about seven million acres, was in the Rocky Mountain region.”

The changing ownership of private lands has forged some unlikely bonds on public lands. Timber companies wringing their hands over disappearing private timberland are joining forces—yes, joining forces—with enviros mourning explosive growth. Just as environmentalists who once criticized grazing policies changed their mantra to “Cows not condos!” some are also seeing timber companies a welcome alternative to subdivisions.

It notes the concerns raised as Plum Creek Timber switches from a logging company to a real estate development company.

“I’m a former tree hugger who was opposed to everything, every timber sale,” Anne Dahl, director of the Swan Valley Ecosystem Center, told the Times, “but now I see that the worst thing you can do is lose it all to development.”

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