New Bush administration rules seen as good for Nevada mining

Launce Rake and Ben Grove

Friday, Oct. 26, 2001 | 9:55 a.m.

Nevada's mining industry scored a big victory Thursday as the Bush administration threw out key rules favored by environmentalists.

Bureau of Land Management officials unveiled the new "hardrock" mining rules that, as expected, abandoned a rule established Jan. 20 -- the final day of the Clinton presidency -- that gave the BLM the right to deny new mines.

Regional BLM officials could have exercised the right when a new gold, silver or copper mine threatened "substantial irreparable harm" to the air, land or water. Environmentalists had championed the provision.

The rules regulate one of Nevada's most important industries. Nevada is the world's third largest gold producer, after South Africa and Australia, producing $2.4 billion of the precious metal last year.

The rule change would go into effect in December, absent a successful challenge by environmentalists. Activists with the Washinton-based Mineral Policy Center, an advocacy group, promised a renewed legal effort to strengthen the BLM's environmental regulations.

But BLM officials said the irreparable-harm phrase was not legally supportable and they already have authority to deny mine claims -- though they rarely do.

Officials also said mining companies could spend thousands of dollars investing in a proposed mine, meet all legal requirements, then have the BLM deny the mine in a last-minute ruling.

"There is a fundamental fairness issue," BLM spokesman Larry Finfer said at a Washington press conference.

Mining companies had howled at the mine veto power the Clinton rules gave the BLM, saying the rules had a chilling effect on exploration. Finfer said limiting exploration was "not something we want to promote."

Russ Fields, president of the Nevada Mining Association, called the irreparable-harm rule "the single most offensive, egregious thing we were really concerned with."

Fields and environmentalists agreed that exploration for new sources of gold and development of new mines will likely increase.

Exploration and development of new mines has been stagnant. Mining companies said the Clinton rules, along with low gold prices and abundant stockpiles of mined ore already on the surface, reduced incentives to develop new mines.

Officials stressed that the BLM retained two important provisions from the Clinton rules:

* A rule requiring mining companies of all sizes, even small mines of five acres or less to post bonds, financial guarantees that they will clean up mine sites, even decades into the future.

* New regulations in the use of cyanide and acid in the mining process.

"Those are the key, core provisions of the rule," Finfer said.

Both provisions were unopposed by industry associations.

Environmentalists mocked the BLM's assertion that the new rules would enhance the agency's "ability to protect the environment, public land resources and public health."

"That sounds like a quote coming from the National Mining Association," said Tom Myers, director of Great Basin Mine Watch, a Nevada-based group that battles the mining industry.

The irreparable-harm standard "was a key provision," he said. "If you don't have the ultimate authority to say 'no' to a mine, the (environmental) standards are meaningless."

The provisions of the Clinton rules largely duplicate rules already in place on the state level, Myers said.

He said ground water, particularly, will suffer because of the changes. Historically, state governments are in charge of protecting ground water quality. The Clinton rules gave new federal authority over ground water.

"More than half the mines in the state have some kind of polluted ground water," Myers said. "That suggests that the state is not doing a great job."

"Nevadans are very much unprotected under this new rule," said Alan Septoff, Mineral Policy Center research director. "Now there is no direct protection of ground water in the federal mining rules."

But Fields, with the mining industry, said the state already protects ground water quality.

"Nevada has a comprehensive regulatory program," he said. "Mines must demonstrate that they will not degrade the waters of the state... The existing regulatory regime addresses that concern."