Hazardous abandoned mines getting their fill

Greg Harman

Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2000 | 11:40 a.m.

The shattered rocks leading to the abandoned Quo Vadis mines just outside Henderson are littered with signs of human activity. Splintered shotgun shells, bullet casings and shards of brown glass are scattered randomly around a hard-scrabble trail leading to the mouth of one mine.

A hundred years ago a denim-clad prospector may have picked and blasted his way to a small gold fortune in these hills, a short distance from Black Mountain.

But today the mine's inviting blackness represents a major safety hazard to curiosity seekers and artifacts scavengers.

Abandoned mines have played a key role in numerous tragedies through the years.

The state Commission on Mineral Resources has logged 12 deaths -- three of them in Clark County -- and 12 injuries in Nevada's 165,000 abandoned mines since 1971.

* Two years ago two men suffered broken bones and dehydration after falling 50 feet in a nearby mine. A 71-year-old prospector noticed a parked truck near the mine's entrance, discovered the pair and called the fire department.

"There's nothing like a hole in the ground to get somebody's attention. It's exciting," Mike O'Farrell, a private environmental consultant, said. "Mines are really terribly dangerous. If you don't have the appropriate equipment and proper training, you really have no business in one."

Now private industry -- prompted and primarily funded by Canadian-based Barrick Goldstrike, which operates a major goldfield in Elko -- has launched an aggressive program aimed at back-filling the state's 50,000 mines labeled hazardous due to their depth and proximity to population centers.

The Nevada Mining Association, in collaboration with the federal Bureau of Land Management and private interests, began filling 13 abandoned mines outside Henderson on Monday. The effort represents the coalition's second mine-plugging project. Seven other Clark County mines were filled in December.

"The industry came to the state and said, 'We're tired of fencing. We want a more extensive program,' " Tim Crowley, community relations manager for the Nevada Mining Association, said.

Chain-link fencing had been the preferred -- though far from permanent or impenetrable -- method for closing dangerous mines.

"Kids climb fences," Gov. Kenny Guinn said, examining the abandoned Quo Vidas mines on Monday. "(Mines) are very intriguing to young people."

Lee Chapman, manager of Barrick Goldstrike's Elko operation, said he began planning the mine-plugging effort after discussing with Clark County officials the results of a recent EPA Toxic Release Inventory report. In 1998 the report for the first time included the impact of mining on the environment, ensuring the state's ranking as the most polluted state.

It became clear in the course of conversation that people were worried about "hazards of the past," Chapman said, not only pollution from past decades, but also other types of hazards.

That started him thinking about the dangers of abandoned mines. "People think I'm nuts, but our goal is to get rid of all of them."

Sealing off all of the abandoned mines classified as hazardous may take up to 30 years, Crowley said. The required environmental reports could delay it further.

Before any mine can be filled, it must first be determined that there are no threatened or endangered species inside, such as the desert tortoise or Townsend big-eared bat.

The environmental studies can take months, involve infrared camera technology and acoustic sampling equipment and cost more than $1,000. The BLM is trying to simplify the process.

"We are working to streamline the steps for analysis," Bob Abbey, state director of the BLM, said. "Hopefully these costs will start coming down."

O'Farrell, who consults for the BLM, said that early fall is a good time to plug mines -- at least from a bat's point of view.

"Right now they're all moving around," he said. The bats may be mating, digesting or sleeping in any of the open mines, but they are not colonizing. That is, they don't have a specific place they return to every morning.

Although the state uses a percentage of mining claim fees to fund its own program to seal off abandoned mines around the state, that money is dwindling as fewer mines are opened.

So the Nevada Mining Association's mine closures have come at a good time for the state.

"As long as the mines are willing to do this, we should take advantage of it," Guinn said.