Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Mining change praised, panned

Suzanne Struglinski

WASHINGTON-- While Nevada mining companies will be able to expand or move forward with new business ventures based on a change to federal mining law handed down by the Interior Department on Friday, critics are opposed to the decision, including environmentalists and a former Clinton administration official.

Interior Secretary Gale Norton signed off on a new interpretation of the 1872 Mining Law, overturning an opinion put in place under the Clinton administration in 1997, which the industry claimed limited its ability to grow.

The department now says for mines on public land, mill sites with waste still must only be 5 acres, but that 20-acre claims can have an unlimited number of the mill sites. A mill site is land adjacent to a mine for offices, equipments and to hold waste dug out from the mine itself.

The prior opinion limited a 20-acre mine to only a 5-acre mill site. It did not affect existing mines at the time, but enforced the limit on any potential new mines or expansions.

Those in favor of the decision say it's about land access, not the environment, an opinion John Leshy, the Interior Department Solicitor General during the Clinton administration who issued the 1997 opinion, contradicts.

"Frankly it has everything to do with the environment," Leshy said. "It's about taking public land."

Leshy, who now teaches at the University of California at Hastings Law School, said the 5-acre mill site to 20-acre mine ratio rule has always been in the law and he just chose to enforce it.

"It was there, it had never been abandoned or overruled," Leshy said. "Is it still good law? Yes." he said. "This is all about power over public lands."

Whitney Painter, spokeswoman for the Mineral Policy Center, a mining watchdog group in Washington, D.C., said the decision "directs the government to quit enforcing the federal law."

She said bigger mine waste piles could lead to more problems from cyanide used to mine the rock and more releases of harmful metal such as lead and mercury.

She also said the Interior Department made the change, rather than going through Congress, because mining companies do not want to open the nation's 1872 mining law to other changes.

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., who has fought for years to change the ruling, said the change does not affect the environmental rules mines have to follow.

"They've got very very strict rules under which they can operate," Gibbons said. "This decision didn't change that. All this did was enable mines to be able to go out and do what was done before 1997."

Gibbons said the old rule forced mining companies to fit "20 pounds in a five pound bag." He said the Clinton administration knew this and made the ruling to stop U.S. mining.

"The effects shut down any future plan for open pit mining in Nevada," Gibbons said. "Now, Nevada's mining future is far brighter. This will enable Nevada's mining industry to stay in business."

Gibbons said the mining industry offers the second-highest average salary in the state at about $65,000 per person each year.

Jim Chavis, vice president of U.S Government Relations for Placer Dome America, said the change will allow the company to design better expansion plans since there is no limit. He said prior to the change there was too much uncertainty on what would be permitted.

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