Del Papa sues BLM over new mining regulations

Brendan Riley

Saturday, Jan. 20, 2001 | 9:39 a.m.

CARSON CITY - Nevada sued the U.S. Bureau of Land Management on Friday, joining in a mining industry effort to overturn new rules governing mining on public lands.

Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa, whose office filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court, Reno, said the new rules taking effect on Saturday impose "a new and very strict standard for the mining industry, and nothing in the draft regulations announced that this standard would be used."

The attorney general said the state supports many of the rule changes, including new requirements for reclamation bonding and new protections for wildlife and wildlife habitat.

But Del Papa added that state officials felt misled because the final rules give the BLM authority to deny a mining plan of operations "if it would cause substantial irreparable harm."

She said the term isn't defined in the rules and could be "subject to a high degree of subjectivity and possible abuse."

Del Papa had been urged by Gov. Kenny Guinn to file the lawsuit. In a Jan. 2 letter to the attorney general, he said the new rules governing hard-rock mining on BLM-managed lands "will be devastating to Nevada."

On Tuesday, representatives of Great Basin Mine Watch and other conservationists intervened in another lawsuit against the rules filed by the National Mining Association.

The NMA insists the governments proposed regulatory strategy is unnecessary and would put thousands of miners out of work.

Critics say the regulations could decrease the value of mining production by up to 30 percent, or up to $484 million. Russ Fields, president of the Nevada Mining Association, says that between 2,100 and 6,050 jobs could be lost and more than 3,000 of those jobs could be in Nevada.

Conservationists contend the employment impacts are vastly overestimated and said the industry and its jobs are far more impacted by fluctuating gold prices than environmental regulations.

Conservationists also say that while some parts of the BLM's rules are an improvement over current mining policy, the proposal falls far short of changes needed to protect sensitive lands from mining damage and pollution.

In Nevada, mining is the second-largest industry behind gambling. The state is the nation's top gold producer and third top producer of gold in the world. About 13,000 people are employed in Nevada mining.

The BLM last updated the Mining Law of 1872 in 1980. Since then, the gold mining industry has increased tenfold across the country. It also has undergone significant changes, including widespread use of cyanide leaching to process the ore and the resulting large open pits common to many Nevada mines.