BLM changes mining rules to include small-scale operators

Monday, Nov. 27, 2000 | 4:06 a.m.

The agency released the new regulations last week. They require a reclamation bond equal to 100 percent of the estimated cleanup cost. Under current rules, miners who disturb less than five acres per year do not have to provide a cleanup bond.

The BLM also will no longer allow companies to pledge their corporate assets in lieu of a cleanup bond.

The rules, which take effect Jan. 20, follow the preferred alternative that BLM outlined in a final environmental impact statement on new hardrock mining regulations last month.

Congress tried to shape the new rules with a rider on the annual Agriculture Department spending bill earlier this year.

Sens. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Harry Reid, D-Nev., proposed the rider, which said the new BLM rules had to follow recommendations made by a 1999 report from the National Academy of Sciences.

The academy report concluded that there was little reason for sweeping revisions, Reid's office said. The BLM, however, said the academy report recommended "tighter hardrock mining regulation and called for more financial responsibility by mining operators."

In the end, the rider was moved to the Interior Department spending bill and was changed to say simply that the new BLM rules couldn't be "inconsistent" with the academy report.

"The bureau feels that we are in compliance with that," said Gordon Hansen, with the agency's legislative affairs office in Washington.

In the new rules, the agency also changed how it decides which miners must file mining plans. Currently, miners that disturb less than five acres must only give the agency notice that they expect to mine. Those who expect to disturb more than five acres must submit a complete plan.

Under the proposed new rules, the acreage wouldn't matter; rather, the volume of material mined would set the standard. Exploration or mining operations that expect to move more than 1,000 cubic yards of material annually would have to file plans.

The Mineral Policy Center, a Washington-based environmental group, said the rule will reduce toxic mining pollution "and ensure that mining operators, not the taxpayer, pay the billions of dollars required to clean up toxic mine sites."

But the National Mining Association, an industry group, said even the Environmental Protection Agency recognizes that mining wastes aren't necessarily dangerous.

"It is important that people know typically 85 percent to 99 percent of what metals mines report is the large quantity of naturally occurring inorganic metals that remain in low concentration in ordinary rock that is moved, stored, processed and managed at the mine site," said Richard Lawson, NMA president.

BLM said hardrock mining regulations hadn't been reviewed since 1980. The agency started its upgrade in 1991, but delayed the process while Congress debated changes in the mining laws.