Guest Opinion

Taxpayers Can’t Afford to Wait for Mining Law Reform

By Alan Bernholtz, Guest Writer, 5-03-10

	The town of Crested Butte

Even with Americans worrying about record budget deficits and struggling through recession, the mining industry is exploiting an antiquated federal law to fleece taxpayers as it makes enormous profits off public lands.

Federal law governing hardrock mining – a legislative relic unchanged since President Ulysses S. Grant signed it in 1872 – lets mining companies buy public land for next to nothing, take the public’s buried treasure without paying a cent in royalties and then stick the public with staggering bills for the pollution and other environmental problems left behind.

As NBC Nightly News recently highlighted in its “Fleecing of America” series, the 1872 General Mining Law gives federal land away for $5 an acre or less and exempts multinational corporations from paying taxes for the minerals they take. Miners get rich while handing taxpayers an estimated $50 billion bill to restore lands and watersheds devastated by mining.

Congress wrote the mining law 138 years ago to encourage pick-and-shovel prospectors to strike out for the unsettled West. Unchanged, the law now grants even foreign mining companies priority over other land uses, making it nearly impossible to limit mining in critical areas, regardless of harm to habitat, water supplies and other natural resources.

I moved to the historic mining town of Crested Butte in 1988 as a 20-year-old who just wanted to ski.  I later became its mayor. Now I’m fighting for the fate of my town, its water and our recreation-based economy. Thompson Creek Metals Co. proposes to develop a massive molybdenum mine a mile upstream of town. The Mount Emmons Project threatens to dump hundreds of thousands of tons of toxic waste into our municipal watershed, affecting everyone who lives and works downstream.

This story is playing out all over the West. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says mining has degraded 40 percent of Western watersheds. The harm spreads far beyond the mine mouth. Many affected streams, for example, feed the Colorado River, which supplies millions of people with drinking water in Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has introduced a bill to ensure the mining industry pays its fair share and cleans up its messes. Oil, gas and coal industries already pay reasonable royalties for resources extracted from public lands. Sen. Bingaman’s bill would require hardrock mining companies to do the same. It also would afford communities a voice in locating mines and give public land managers authority to reject mines in places where clean water and other values are literally more valuable than gold.

Support for the bill is growing in Congress, but its momentum may be slowed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s re-election campaign in Nevada, a major gold-producing state. Reid can be a strong friend to the environment but also regularly sides with the mining industry. He could lose that industry’s support if fellow Democrats push mining reform this tough election year.

But the public risks losing even more through inaction. Public lands provide clean water for millions of people. They offer access to exceptional fishing, hunting, hiking and camping and support tourism – an important economic driver in the West. We have a shared responsibility to protect these lands for the benefit of all Americans and future generations.

Don’t get me wrong: metals are essential, and mining is an appropriate use of public land. But we depend on public lands for multiple uses. No single industry should have free rein. And, given our country’s tough economic straits, no industry should get a free ride.

The opportunity to pass meaningful mining law reform is at hand.  We can’t afford to squander it.

Alan Bernholtz is director of mountain operations for CS Irwin, a backcountry ski guide service in Crested Butte. He was mayor of Crested Butte from 2005-2009.

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