The Wilderness Blog

ANWR, Mining, Dumping, and Old Broads

By Hillary Rosner, 11-12-05

Wilderness is all over the news at the moment, from the debate over drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to a plan to open as much as 20 million acres of public lands to mineral leasing. The U.S. House of Representatives decided this week to remove the ANWR provision—which would have opened the refuge to oil drilling—from the controversial budget bill, now stalled until at least next week. But another provision still in the bill would overturn a ban on buying up mining claims--meaning that mineral companies might soon be able to buy public land, including in national parks, at wholesale prices if they think it could contain mineral deposits.

Surely it’s not just the overly cynical who are wondering whether the decision to save ANWR for the time being isn’t just a bid by members of Congress up for re-election in 2006 to try to save their seats. Who wants to go down in history—in an election cycle, no less, as the one who voted to destroy America’s last great wilderness? The mining provision, though, is much lower profile—and someone could easily vote for a mining company land giveaway without having every voter in their district know--or care--about it. Wilderness values in this country are often about lip service; no one wants to be caught saying they’re opposed to saving wild places, but actually making sacrifices to save them is another thing entirely.

Meanwhile, in Montana, executives from a mining company that hopes to open a silver and copper mine in the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness were racing around on a public relations boondoggle, trying to drum up support for the project—which is apparently close enough to going through that the company is already training workers.

The Rock Creek Mine has been a source of controversy for some time; last year the jewelry giant Tiffany & Co.—a major buyer of silver--took out a full-page ad in the Washington Post opposing the mine on the grounds that it would be hazardous to wildlife and the environment. The mine is legal under the 1872 Mining Law, despite necessitating several miles of tunnels under the mountains in the wilderness. (Access to the mine would be outside the wilderness boundary.)

The Tiffany ad called for changes to the federal mining act to prevent this sort of thing in the future—though somehow the changes currently under review in the House budget bill, to open more land to mining, don’t seem exactly what the jewelry company intended.

In Utah, a contractor building a new house piled a big mound of dirt inside the boundary of the Lone Peaks Wilderness, provoking the ire of a forest service ranger, and likely others, in the area. According to the Provo Daily Herald, a dirt pile 10 to 15 feet high was dumped right on the wilderness boundary, burying part of the fence. The pile was removed the same day, but a ranger claimed that the excavated dirt harmed vegetation inside the wilderness area.

"We don't take these things lightly," the ranger, Pam Gardner, told the paper, which also reported that "[f]orest officials will put together a restoration plan that would require the contractor to seed and perhaps replant some sagebrush in the area as well as spread mulch to keep the seed from washing away."

Another interesting juxtaposition: dumping dirt in the wilderness is illegal, but commercial mining there is not.

Finally, in South Dakota, the executive director of my all-time favorite-name wilderness group, Great Old Broads for Wilderness, told an audience in Rapid City that "wilderness is valuable for its own sake and not just for the recreational proclivities of the young, buff elite." Veronica "Ronnie" Egan told the Rapid City Journal that she and others formed the group 16 years ago after Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), she said, argued that restricting motorized vehicles in wilderness discriminated against older people. Senator Hatch is up for re-election in 2006.

Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.