[House Hearing, 105 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
HARDROCK MINING ISSUES
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY
AND MINERAL RESOURCES
of the
COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 22, 1997, ELKO, NEVADA
__________
Serial No. 105-53
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Resources
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
45-477 CC WASHINGTON : 1997
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office
Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office, Washington, DC 20402
COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
DON YOUNG, Alaska, Chairman
W.J. (BILLY) TAUZIN, Louisiana GEORGE MILLER, California
JAMES V. HANSEN, Utah EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
JIM SAXTON, New Jersey NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia
ELTON GALLEGLY, California BRUCE F. VENTO, Minnesota
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan
JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland Samoa
KEN CALVERT, California NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii
RICHARD W. POMBO, California SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming OWEN B. PICKETT, Virginia
HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
LINDA SMITH, Washington CALVIN M. DOOLEY, California
GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California CARLOS A. ROMERO-BARCELO, Puerto
WALTER B. JONES, Jr., North Rico
Carolina MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York
WILLIAM M. (MAC) THORNBERRY, Texas ROBERT A. UNDERWOOD, Guam
JOHN SHADEGG, Arizona SAM FARR, California
JOHN E. ENSIGN, Nevada PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island
ROBERT F. SMITH, Oregon ADAM SMITH, Washington
CHRIS CANNON, Utah WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
KEVIN BRADY, Texas CHRIS JOHN, Louisiana
JOHN PETERSON, Pennsylvania DONNA CHRISTIAN-GREEN, Virgin
RICK HILL, Montana Islands
BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado RON KIND, Wisconsin
JIM GIBBONS, Nevada LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas
MICHAEL D. CRAPO, Idaho
Lloyd A. Jones, Chief of Staff
Elizabeth Megginson, Chief Counsel
Christine Kennedy, Chief Clerk/Administrator
John Lawrence, Democratic Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources
BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming, Chairman
W.J. (BILLY) TAUZIN, Louisiana CARLOS ROMERO-BARCELO, Puerto Rico
JOHN L. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia
KEN CALVERT, California SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
WILLIAM M. (MAC) THORNBERRY, Texas CALVIN M. DOOLEY, California
CHRIS CANNON, Utah CHRIS JOHN, Louisiana
KEVIN BRADY, Texas DONNA CHRISTIAN-GREEN, Virgin
JIM GIBBONS, Nevada Islands
------ ------
Bill Condit, Professional Staff
Sharla Bickley, Professional Staff
Deborah Lanzone, Legislative Staff
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held September 22, 1997.................................. 1
Statements of Members:
Cubin, Hon. Barbara, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Wyoming........................................... 1
Gibbons, Hon. Jim, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Nevada............................................ 4
Statements of witnesses:
Blackwell, Jack, Deputy Regional Forester, Intermountain
Region, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture 49
Prepared statement of.................................... 68
Carpenter, John, Assemblyman, Nevada Legislature............. 36
Prepared statement of.................................... 260
Drozdoff, Leo, Bureau Chief, Mining Regulation & Reclamation,
Nevada Division of Environmental Protection, Nevada
Department of Conservation and Natural Resources........... 47
Prepared statement of.................................... 264
Espell, Ron A., Environmental Superintendent, Barrick
Goldstrike Mines, Inc...................................... 7
Franzoia, Michael J., Mayor, City of Elko.................... 35
Prepared statement of.................................... 71
Gadt, Larry O., Director, Minerals and Geology Management,
U.S. Forest Service........................................ 52
Gustin, Gene, Public Land Use Advisory Council to the Elko
County Commission.......................................... 20
Prepared statement of.................................... 62
Hackworth, Royce, Chairman, Elko County Commission........... 30
Prepared statement of.................................... 64
Jones, Martin R., Senior Manager, NV Environmental
Compliance, Newmont Gold Co................................ 10
Prepared statement of.................................... 73
Lesperance, Anthony L., Elko County Commissioner............. 31
Prepared statement of.................................... 217
Miles, Zane, Deputy District Attorney, Eureka County......... 33
Prepared statement of.................................... 65
Myers, Tom, Consultant to Great Basin Mine Watch............. 18
Prepared statement of.................................... 185
Presley, Edward L., National Director, County Alliance to
Restore the Economy & Environment (CAREE).................. 22
Prepared statement of.................................... 203
Reid, Hon. Harry, a Senator in Congress from the State of
Nevada..................................................... 5
Rivers-Council, Jean, Associate State Director, Nevada State
Office, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Department of the
Interior................................................... 50
Prepared statement of.................................... 69
Upton, Bill W., Manager, Environmental Affairs, Placer Dome
U.S., Inc.................................................. 9
Prepared statement of.................................... 61
Additional material supplied:
Blaylock, Gregory A., Joseph, Oregon, prepared statement of.. 278
Women's Mining Coalition, Elko, Nevada, prepared statement of 280
Nevada Gold Cyanide Mill Tailings Regulation................. 139
Newmont Gold Company, Comments of............................ 85
HARDROCK MINING ISSUES
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MONDAY, september 22, 1997
House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Energy
and Mineral Resources, Committee on Resources,
Elko, Nevada.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:10 a.m. at
the Stockman Hotel, 340 Commercial Street, Elko, Nevada; Hon.
Barbara Cubin (chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
Mrs. Cubin. I am not used to holding this. I could get
carried away here. So if we break out in song, you will know
why, and we have the right setting for it as well.
I would like to call the Subcommittee on Minerals and
Energy hearing to order. I want to thank all of you for being
here today and it is an honor for me to be here.
We are a Subcommittee of the Committee on Resources, from
the Congress, and thank you for your hospitality and thank all
of you for attending. Let me begin today's hearing by thanking
Congressman Jim Gibbons. He is a valued member of this
Subcommittee and we are happy to have him as our host here
today in Elko, Nevada, in the heart of gold mining country. My
brother is a gold miner down at Misquite mine, so I sort of
have a sensitive spot for gold mining.
Although I came from a small town, Casper, Wyoming, it is
seldom that we can take time out from our busy schedule in
Congress to be able to hold these field hearings, especially in
remote areas like Elko, but it is an honor for us to do that
and, of course, this is where the folks that are most affected
by the government decisions regarding the use of the public
lands live, so it is good for us to be able to come back and
hear from the very people that are affected by the decisions
that we make, just how those decisions turn out in real life
when you have to practice what we bring forward.
Unfortunately, as is the case with many field hearings, we
do have a schedule to meet, and we have a 1:55 flight, so we
have to adjourn promptly at 1 o'clock. I think we will have
time, but I would like to ask everyone to keep their comments
to the 5-minute period. We have lights here, and if you could
do that, that would be greatly appreciated.
STATEMENT OF HON. BARBARA CUBIN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF WYOMING
Mrs. Cubin. This Subcommittee has held two field hearings
in Congress already on the subject that we will be talking
about today, and concerning the Secretary of Interior's
decision to pub-
lish, on February 28 of this year, a final rulemaking bonding
of hardrock mining operations on public lands, administered by
the Bureau of Land Management. After having to resort to a
subpoena, issued by Chairman Young of the full Resources
Committee, we finally have all of the documents that we
requested in our inquiry from the Secretary, and what we want
to know, as of course do you, why the Secretary has allowed
this rulemaking to become final after such a long lapse without
new public input.
He did this despite requests from me, from Congressman
Gibbons, from your Governor and the senior Senator for your
State and others to re-propose the rule for new comments. A
lawsuit filed by the Northwest Mining Association against the
Secretary, alleging abuse of discretion and failure to follow
proper rulemaking procedures is in progress in the U.S.
District Court, where a ruling on cross-motions for summary
judgment is possible by the end of this month. But whatever the
outcome of the lawsuit, I believe the Secretary's actions are a
strong indicator that we in Congress, as well as in the
regulated industry and indeed the public at large, must remain
vigilant and insist upon strict adherence to the Administrative
Procedures Act and the Regulatory Flexibility Act as well,
which mandates analysis of impacts of rulemaking upon small
businesses.
I view the role of Congress to protect the system, while I
don't always agree with the decisions that are made by those
decisionmakers in the executive branch, and, therefore, I can't
always--or really can't intervene on those decisions once they
have followed the correct procedure. But my job, and I think
the job of the Congress, and this oversight hearing, is to make
sure that we protect the procedure, that we protect the policy
because if we don't do that, there are several things that can
be guaranteed.
No. 1, when the procedure is violated, even if you are on
the winning side this time, the procedure will be violated
again and you may be on the losing side the next time. Another
thing that can be guaranteed, especially in areas where the
environment is being debated, that degradation of the
environment will occur at some point when the process is abused
and violation of private property rights will occur. Therefore,
it is my sworn duty to protect the policy and make sure that
the agencies abide by those two laws.
Another thing happening in Congress, this time in the
Senate, which also bodes poorly for full participation by the
States in the full 3809 regulations rewrite, which Secretary
Babbitt announced last winter, last week the appropriations
bill for fiscal year 1998 for the Interior Department was
debated. In the version from the Committee was language to
require the establishment of a committee of Western Governors'
representatives to report to Congress on the proper roles of
States in mining, permitting and reclamation matters.
The report would ensure the Governors a place at the 3809
table, so to speak, but incredibly, the administration
threatened to veto if such a provision were to remain. It is
astounding to me that the agency should think that the
Governors of the States affected should not have a place at the
table. The senior Senator from Arkansas led the charge and
there was no choice for Western Senators, they said, except to
bargain away that requirement in return for not allowing the
BLM to publish the proposed 3809 rule until after December 31,
1998, and the truth is, the House of Representatives, in which
Mr. Gibbons and I serve, would very likely have balked at a
conference committee report, which included the Governor's
report requirement as another attempt by the quote,
``subsidized public land miners to stall off necessary
reform,'' but not because we haven't tried to set our
colleagues from the East straight or from the East on this and
other Western issues, but because the folks who want to see the
industry leave the U.S. altogether are winning the public
relations wars, so the mail to the Eastern representatives and
Midwestern Members of Congress is routinely against efforts to
restore the multiple use concepts and multiple use for public
lands.
A trip in August, in which the Speaker of the House, the
Majority Leader, the Majority Whip, all total about 14 Members
of Congress, came back and were educated on Western issues, and
the folks from the East and from the industrial Midwest were
amazed at what they saw when they compared what they actually
saw to what they thought was happening out here on the public
lands.
As you in the mining industry well know, increasingly, it
is a Superfund or the Clean Water or the Clean Air Act tail
wagging the 1872 mining law dog. In other words, so what if
irresponsible efforts to reform the 1872 mining law is staved
off for another Congress, if air, water or other environmental
thresholds are adopted in statute or regulation, which
effectively deny permit issuance.
Unfortunately, the Federal laws which the EPA administers
and delegates to the States, which demonstrate willingness and
ability to implement them, by the way, are not generally within
the jurisdiction of the Committee on Resources. A notable
exception is the Endangered Species Act. Nevertheless, the
genesis of the 3809 regulations is clearly the Federal land
policy management--excuse me--FLPMA, I just will quit
stuttering. We all know what FLPMA is, but FLPMA does reside in
the jurisdiction of our Committee and therefore we can have
this hearing.
The Secretary of the Interior does, indeed, have a mandate
to prevent unnecessary and undue degradation of public lands.
We all agree with that. I don't believe there is a single
person in this audience who would deliberately degrade the
environment. The 104th Congress voted to establish a 5 percent
net proceeds royalty, require payment of fair market value for
the services stated within a claim to be patented and establish
a trust fund for reclamation of land abandoned by miners, prior
to the modern reclamation requirements.
This was called sham reform by the administration, and
others. Apparently the sham reform was not enough of a good
faith showing by the Congress to warrant further dialog.
Instead, in a move that a Washington Post reporter even labeled
as stealth mining law reform, Secretary Babbitt has shifted the
debate to a forum in which he has the most broad control, but I
do pledge to use this chairmanship to see to it that meaningful
public input is brought out, that it is received properly and
dealt with properly, before the 3809 mining rules or the Forest
Service parallel rules at 36 CFR 228 R, revised. So I do thank
you for your attendance today and I am going to call on your
representative, Jim Gibbons, for an opening statement.
STATEMENT OF HON. JIM GIBBONS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF NEVADA
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you very much, and on behalf of all of
Nevada, I want to welcome Representative Cubin to Elko, Nevada.
As Chairman of the Energy and Mineral Resource Committee, this
is an important opportunity for all of Nevada to have a chance
to understand just exactly what it is that Congress can do, and
should do when it comes to protecting this industry, so I would
like to welcome you to Elko, Nevada, and I would like to
express my sincere gratitude to you for holding this hearing on
the precious--in fact, in the precious metal capital of the
world, here in Elko, the silver State, and I applaud your
efforts to preserve and protect a vital interest to Nevada and
to this country. And I know you, as a chemist, and I as a
former geologist, have a deep appreciation and understanding of
all of our Nation's mining and mineral industries and it is the
reason why we feel this is such an important part of our job as
representatives in Congress.
By way of introduction, let me say that Nevada, the
Nation's leader in gold production, has 30 operating gold-
producing companies here and they employ more than 14,000
people. These people mined an estimated $2.9 billion worth of
metals in 1995 in Nevada alone. Nevada alone provides an annual
direct contribution to the Federal Government of more than $113
million.
As the second largest employer in the State, mining
provides $1.5 billion in personal, business, State, and local
government revenues. That is $1.5 billion. Now, these numbers
make it easy to realize why mining is such an important part of
Nevada and why any change in the laws or regulations governing
mining or mining operations must be closely monitored to ensure
that the mineral industry is not crippled or endangered by
personal agendas of special interest groups or individuals
whose only goal is to eliminate all mining activity on public
land.
In a memo from Secretary of the Interior, Bruce Babbitt, to
the Assistant Secretary of Lands and Minerals, dated January 6,
1997, Mr. Babbitt stated clearly, quote, ``It is plainly no
longer in the public interest to wait for Congress to enact
legislation that corrects the remaining shortcomings of the
3809 regulations. To that end, I direct you to restart this
role-making process by preparing and publishing proposed
regulations,'' end quote.
Well, to Mr. Babbitt, I would say that Article I, Section 1
of the Constitution states that all legislative powers herein
granted shall be vested in a Congress. Democracy and our
Constitution require that the people be bound only by those
policies enacted by our elected lawmakers, not appointed
bureaucrats. Since the New Deal, however, Congress has
routinely lost the power to make laws and it has lost that
power to unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats. This must
stop and the legislative powers must be returned back to
Congress allowing decisionmakers to be held accountable to
their constituency.
If we want to find recent administrative actions doing
great harm to our political process and to the people of
Nevada, we do not have to look very far. Clearly, evidence of
this loss of power and administrative lawmaking were recently
felt by this great State when the Secretary published new rules
on BLM hardrock bonding requirements.
I submit to this Committee that the public was not allowed
to voice their opposition or their concerns about the substance
of the final version of the rule. Five-and-one-half years
before the administration's final enactment of the rule, the
intention of the Department of Interior was to create
legislative policy. I believe their actions violated the
Administrative Procedures Act and were a disservice to the
people of America.
Does anyone in the Department of Interior remember the
preamble to our Constitution which states, ``of the people, by
the people and for the people.'' The purpose of this hearing,
of course, will be to explore the Department of Interior's
effort to revise the hardrock mining surface management
regulations, 43 CFR 3809, or simply put, the 3809 regulations.
It is my intention today with your support to hear from the
people of Nevada, the citizens of this country, the industry,
the State and then the Federal Government on why we need to
change 3809 regulations. And if indeed we do, then how best to
go about changing and implementing the new regulations. It is
my intention as a Member of Congress not to be caught off guard
when the Department of Interior makes their changes.
I encourage public comments on this regulation so that I
can use every power available to me to ensure that the adage,
quote, ``for the people,'' end quote, is held true in its
spirit.
Madam Chairman, I look forward to this hearing today and I
would like to thank you and everyone for taking time out of
their busy schedules to participate in our government process.
Thank you and I would yield back any balance of time that I
have.
Mrs. Cubin. Thank you, Mr. Gibbons. Now that the light is
on, I could even read his statement. I have just reached the
age when I have learned that I can't see very close anymore so
forgive me for my bit of stuttered speech.
Now we will begin with the testimony on the first panel and
first I will call on Ron Espell--oh, excuse me, no. We are
honored today to have a representative from Senator Reid's
office with us for a brief statement, and so I will ask Karen
Denio if she will please give the Senator's testimony for us.
STATEMENT OF HON. HARRY REID, A SENATOR IN THE CONGRESS FROM
THE STATE OF NEVADA
Ms. Denio. Thank you very much. My name is Karen Denio. I
am rural coordinator for U.S. Senator Harry Reid, senior
Senator from the State of Nevada. Senator Reid has asked that I
read his statement into the record and his personal statement
is as follows:
Last Thursday, with the assistance of other Western
Senators, I fought off a major challenge to Nevada miners as
the interior appropriations bill came to the floor by fending
off attempts by perennial foe Dale Bumpers to attach
legislative riders to the bill calling for a net royalty and
severance tax on mining operations.
Additionally, we successfully negotiated a 1-year
moratorium on any new 3809 regulations. My amendment will
require the Sec-
retary of the Interior to wait until at least November 15,
1998, to publish proposed regulations on the 3809 hardrock
mining regulations. After that, we can use the Reid-Nickles
Regulatory Reform Act to stop anything particularly offensive
or dangerous for Nevada miners.
This past February, Secretary Babbitt stated in an
interview on National Public Radio that he was going to rewrite
the current mining laws. His most recent attempt at revising
3809 regulations is another back-door approach to mining law
reform. This effort illustrates the Secretary's frustration
with not getting mining law reform done his way.
The administration just does not understand the process
that Congress has undertaken to reform the 1872 mining law.
Reasonable mining law reform must come through cooperation with
Congress and Western States, not through covert actions by
Federal bureaucrats. I fear a negative impact on mining
operations on public lands. The Secretary's prescription for
mining law reform is a one-size-fits-all approach. He wants to
direct uniform Federal standards for a goal placer operation in
Alaska, surface copper mines in Arizona and underground gold
mines in Nevada. As any miner knows, this will not work.
In many ways this proposal is a direct attack on the
economy of Western States, since the vast majority of Federal
lands are located in the West. As you know, Nevada has 87
percent of its land under Federal control.
According to the Interior Department, the mining law
revision process has been on hold since 1993 because Congress
has failed to act on the matter. I resent the implication that
Congress has not considered mining law reform. Maybe it was not
to the liking of those who would like to destroy the industry.
I have written several bills since I have been in the Senate,
including a 1994 measure that passed both the House and Senate.
Additionally, the 104th Congress passed legislation amending
the mining law, however, it was vetoed as part of a larger
action.
When mining law reform takes place, Congress should do it
with the cooperation of the Western State governments. The
issue of mining reform has been one of the most hotly debated
subjects in Congress for the past 7 years. Congress has
considered many controversial amendments, and after debate,
close votes have occurred. The Secretary continues to push his
agenda on this Congress and I am proud of the role I played in
ensuring that no amendments, bills, or bureaucratic shenanigans
that would have been disastrous to hardrock mining succeeded.
What is of most concern to me is the Secretary's efforts to
bypass the Congress on this most important matter. In the past,
the Secretary has called for collaborative resource management,
yet he leaves the Western Governors out of the process. It is
the Western State economies that are most affected by the
Department's actions. The Department of the Interior wants to
create new and onerous regulatory requirements that may
conflict with rules already in place in States where mining
occurs.
Since the BLM first wrote the 3809 regulations back in
1980, States have made vast improvements to their laws
governing mining, reclamation, and environmental remediation on
Federal land. Nevada's laws serve as a model for the rest of
the world. I fail to understand why we need another set of
burdensome regulations from the Federal Government when our
State laws already protect our resources and promote our
economy. Thank you.
Mrs. Cubin. Thank you, Karen, and will you please send our
regards and our thanks to the Senator for his testimony?
Ms. Denio. I will.
Mrs. Cubin. Now we are back on track. So the first witness
we will call on today is Ron Espell, Environmental
Superintendent for Barrick Goldstrike Mines, Inc.
Mr. Espell. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Mrs. Cubin. I would like to call your attention to the
traffic signal down here.
Mr. Espell. I will have to do this without a mike.
Mrs. Cubin. We will get you a mike. Is that working?
We will start your 5 minutes over. You will know when your
time is up because the red light will be flashing in your eyes.
STATEMENT OF RON A. ESPELL, ENVIRONMENTAL SUPERINTENDENT,
BARRICK GOLDSTRIKE MINES, INC.
Mr. Espell. Thank you very much for the opportunity to
appear at this hearing of the House Subcommittee on Energy and
Mineral Resources today to discuss the regulatory framework
that governs hardrock mining on Federal lands. My name is Ron
Espell. I am currently the Environmental Superintendent for
Barrick Goldstrike Mines, which is the owner and operator of
the Goldstrike Mine on the Carlin Trend in Eureka County,
Nevada. I have worked at Goldstrike since 1994.
My responsibilities include assuring that Goldstrike has
the proper environmental permits, including approvals from the
Federal Bureau of Land Management and the State of Nevada.
Before coming to Goldstrike, I worked for other mining
companies, consultants to the mining industry and Nevada's
Bureau of Mining Regulation and Reclamation, so I have many
years of experience with mine regulation and permitting.
Mining activities on Federal lands at the Goldstrike Mine
are regulated by BLM, through a plan of operations that was
initially approved in 1987. Mining on public and private lands
is subject to a mining permit from the State of Nevada that was
initially issued in 1991, after Nevada adopted new mining
regulations in 1989. Our BLM plan of operations has been
amended several times and our Nevada mining permit will be
renewed this year.
At Goldstrike, we have a significant amount of experience
with the existing process for permitting mining operations. I
want to focus my testimony on several key points about the
current regulations and explain why, from my perspective,
changes are not necessary.
One, cooperation between Federal and State regulators is
essential. An essential element of any effective system for
mine regulation is cooperation and respect between BLM and
State mining regulators. Because a mine that operates on public
lands must be permitted by both agencies, the possibility
exists for conflicting or inconsistent requirements. We have
been fortunate that both the State of Nevada and the local BLM
district recognize the impor-
tance of cooperation. It has been our experience that the
Nevada State agencies work closely with BLM and the mine
operator, to assure that requirements are consistent and to
avoid duplicative requirements, including inspections.
BLM's existing 3809 regulations encourage Federal/State
cooperation through cooperative agreements and by provisions
which explicitly incorporate State reclamation and
environmental standards into BLM's process for reviewing and
approving plans of operations. Most importantly, by requiring
compliance with State standards, the present 3809 regulations
provide an evolving standard which automatically incorporates
changes in State laws and regulations.
Two, BLM should not develop independent performance
standards. The second point that I would like to make is
related to my first concern about Federal/State cooperation in
permitting. BLM should not develop separate environmental or
reclamation performance standards. As I understand it,
Secretary Babbitt has asked the BLM task force that is looking
at 3809 regulations to consider whether BLM should develop
additional environmental or reclamation performance standards.
We believe that BLM should not develop additional
performance standards for two reasons. First, reclamation
standards must be tailored to the site where mining occurs and
the type of mining that is proposed. Reclamation on the Carlin
Trend will require different methods and different standards
from reclamation in the Arizona desert or the Montana
mountains. Reclamation at an open pit copper mine is different
from reclamation at an underground gold mine. A one-size-fits-
all standard imposed from BLM in Washington simply cannot
accommodate the many different environments where mining will
occur. Instead, BLM should look to the reclamation standards
developed by State and local governments who are much more
familiar with local conditions and land uses.
Second, separate performance standards developed by BLM
will likely lead to inconsistent requirements. Every mining
operation is subject to a long list of permitting requirements
to prevent pollution of air and water and protect the
environment. For example, water quality standards are developed
by States under the authority of the Federal Clean Water Act
and implemented through permits. There is no reason for BLM to
second guess existing water quality standards or permits. This
is particularly important in the area of ground water, where
Congress firmly stated its intent to leave groundwater
protection to the States. Rather than create new requirements,
BLM should simply incorporate State water quality standards or
permit requirements into its approval of a plan of operations.
Similarly, every Western State has a modern mining reclamation
law.
BLM should not attempt to duplicate those requirements. I
do not believe that the Interior Department can demonstrate
that any changes are needed to BLM's current 3809 regulations.
I hope that these oversight hearings will add to the record and
encourage the Department to avoid major changes. Thank you very
much for the opportunity to give this testimony.
Mrs. Cubin. Thank you very much. Our next witness will be
Bill Upton of Placer Dome U.S. Inc.
STATEMENT OF BILL W. UPTON, MANAGER, ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS,
PLACER DOME U.S., INC.
Mr. Upton. Madam Chair, Congressman Gibbons, my name is
Bill Upton. I am the Manager of Environmental Affairs for
Placer Dome U.S. Incorporated. In this capacity I have direct
and oversight permitting responsibilities for PDUS. Placer Dome
U.S. Inc. operates three large gold mines in the United States,
two in Nevada and one in Montana, and conducts extensive
mineral exploration throughout the West, including Alaska.
Our United States operations employ a total of 955 people.
We employ people in Nevada, Montana, Alaska and Kentucky.
Placer Dome U.S. has a long history of permitting and operating
on public land in Nevada and Montana. Our most recent
permitting experience is the expansion of our existing mining
operations. In Nevada, Cortez Gold Mines began operations in
1969 and is located primarily on public land administered by
the BLM and Bald Mountain Mine began operations in 1981 and is
primarily located on private land but also operates on some BLM
administered land.
All of our operations are permitted under the requirements
of 43 CFR 3809 and have undergone extensive environmental
reviews pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act.
Permitting under 3809 and NEPA has been ongoing at Cortez Gold
Mines since 1990. The BLM completed their first Environmental
Impact Statement for Cortez in 1993. Subsequent discoveries led
to the permitting of our Crescent Pit and preparation of
another EIS for our pipeline pit and number 2 mill expansion.
The BLM is currently completing an Environmental Impact
Statement for the most recent Cortez Plan of Operations.
The BLM completed an EIS for the expansion of Bald Mountain
Mine in 1995 and most recently permitted Bald Mountain's LJ
Ridge expansion. At Golden Sunlight in Montana initial mine
development was permitted in 1981 under the Montana Mining and
Mineral Policy Act. In 1995 the mine submitted an application
to expand operations and the Montana Department of
Environmental Quality, as the lead agency, and the BLM as
cooperating agency are completing an EIS for the expansion. The
remainder of my testimony will center on the BLM's review of
possible changes to 3809 regulations. PDUS had the opportunity
to tour several members of the BLM task force conducting this
review at our pipeline project in April and at Golden Sunlight
in early September. The task force saw firsthand how many of
the issues they are concerned with in 3809 are being managed
effectively under the current regulations in strong State and
Federal regulatory programs in these States.
At Cortez, they saw the notice level exploration drilling
operations and the controls incorporated in these operations to
prevent unnecessary and undue degradation. They walked over
areas where similar activities had been conducted the season
before and which had already been reclaimed and which were
nearly indistinguishable from the adjacent undistributed land.
They saw the comparatively low density and intensity of
disturbance typical of this activity. We explained to them how
important Notice Level exploration is to our long-term planning
and survival, how it provides the opportunity to gain timely
access to prospective areas to further assess their mineral
potential before investing the enormous amount of time and
money required to permit plan level disturbance.
At Golden Sunlight, the task force observed the importance
of incorporating site-specific conditions into the reclamation
plan and how this had been accomplished through the existing
State and Federal permitting program in Montana. They also saw
the distinct differences in site conditions between Golden
Sunlight and Cortez. Unlike many other industries, mining can
only occur where the resource is located.
The contrast in site conditions between Golden Sunlight and
Cortez and the resulting differences in their reclamation plans
are a good example of why one-size-fits-all performance
standards would be inappropriate for hardrock mining given the
wide variety of site conditions within which it can occur.
Pit backfilling, including the enormous expense in dollars
and resources to accomplish it, the potential adverse
environmental impacts associated with it, and the loss in
potential mineable resources it would result in were discussed
at both operations with the task force. The task force learned
first hand how this issue was included in the alternative
analysis during the permitting of both operations and therefore
is already receiving detailed evaluation as part of an existing
State and Federal permitting requirements.
Most importantly the task force saw how permitting and
regulation of hardrock mining is being effectively coordinated
with State government both in Nevada and Montana. They saw how
the permitting role of these States on issues concerning air
quality and water quality and quantity is being coordinated
with BLM and effectively carried out in a manner protective of
public lands.
In summary, PDUS believes the regulations are working to
protect public lands. The current 3809 complemented by strong
State regulatory programs have provided for and will continue
to provide for the adequate protection of public lands. We have
not seen any evidence to show additional regulations is
warranted. The examples I've provided from our operations in
Nevada and Montana are testimony to the fact that current
regulations are comprehensive and when properly implemented in
coordination with State programs adequately protect the public,
as well as private lands. Thank you and I will do my best to
answer any questions.
[The statement of Mr. Upton may be found at end of
hearing.]
Mrs. Cubin. Thank you very much. Can you folks in the back
hear the testimony? Hold it, if you will, please, Mr. Jones,
hold the microphone closer to your mouth.
Mr. Jones. How is that? Is that better? OK. That is better.
Mrs. Cubin. Thank you. Do you want to use the stand there,
or hold it, it doesn't matter, whatever you are most
comfortable with.
Mr. Jones. I will hold it, that is fine.
Mrs. Cubin. Our next witness is Martin Jones, Senior
Manager of Nevada Environmental Compliance with Newmont Gold
Company.
STATEMENT OF MARTIN R. JONES, SENIOR MANAGER, NV ENVIRONMENTAL
COMPLIANCE, NEWMONT GOLD CO.
Mr. Jones. Good morning, Madam Chair, Congressman Gibbons,
my name is Martin Jones, Senior Manager of Nevada Environ-
mental Compliance for Newmont Gold Company. I am responsible
for overseeing compliance for Newmont's Nevada operations with
all Federal, State and local environmental laws, including laws
relating to exploration, operation and closure. Newmont is the
largest gold producer in North America.
Since 1965, Newmont has engaged in mining and processing on
the Carlin Trend in north central Nevada. Today, Newmont Gold's
domestic operations remain centered in northern Nevada. In the
last 15 years, the U.S. gold mining industry has emerged as an
internationally competitive industry and has accomplished this
without the need for government loans, subsidies, bailouts or
tax breaks. In fact, gold mining companies in most cases
themselves have paid for the community and other infrastructure
needs necessary to support their operations during a time when
environmental regulations have been ever increasing, and it has
done this while paying its employees wages that are higher than
any other segment of American workers.
Over two-thirds of our nation's gold production takes place
in Nevada. Gold mining generates over 51,000 jobs in Nevada,
and precious metal producers paid over $141 million in Nevada
State and local taxes in 1995. Newmont and other mining
companies work hard to ensure that their operations on public
and private lands are conducted in an environmentally
responsible manner and in accord with all applicable State and
Federal regulatory programs. These programs are numerous and
are scrutinized by many agencies, including the Nevada
Divisions of Environmental Protection, Water Resources, and
Wildlife, the U.S. EPA, Fish and Wildlife Service, Army Corps
of Engineers and the Bureau of Land Management.
We recognize and accept our obligation to properly close
and reclaim mining sites after their useful life. In the late
1980's, Newmont worked closely with the Nevada Mining
Association, Nevada Division of Environmental Protection and
the Sierra Club to develop a State reclamation program that
would ensure reclamation of public and private lands.
Today, we will focus on the BLM regulations applicable to
hardrock mining on public lands, known as the 3809 regulations,
the basic substance of which has been in place since 1980 and
has proven more than adequate to protect public lands. Despite
the rhetoric of mining industry critics, we have not seen
evidence indicating that these regulations have led to
significant problems or that regulatory changes are necessary.
This is especially true for States like Nevada, that have
comprehensive environmental mining and reclamation and
regulatory programs.
In 1992, BLM conducted a comprehensive review of the 3809
regulations and concluded that the centerpiece of the program,
a rule that prohibits unnecessary or undue degradation of
public lands, was fully adequate. As the Committee is no doubt
aware, Secretary of the Interior Babbitt last spring appointed
a task force to review the 3809 regulations and proposed
revisions, including revisions that would impose prescriptive
and inflexible nationwide standards.
In connection with the task force efforts, Newmont
submitted extensive comments. I ask that these comments be made
a part of the record for this proceeding and will very briefly
summarize them for you. Under the existing 3809 program,
persons wishing to engage in mining on public land must submit
a plan of operation for approval by BLM. Before approving the
plan, BLM undertakes a comprehensive assessment of all
potential environmental impacts and if any are found, the plan
of operation is modified as appropriate.
In addition, operations in Nevada must comply with
standards imposed by the State: Mining, reclamation and
wildlife protection regulatory programs. These programs ensure
that the design and operation of each facility is appropriate
for the physical, geological and hydro geological condition at
each site. Tailoring operation and reclamation plans to site-
specific conditions is essential.
Hardrock mining involves many different minerals in mining
and processing techniques and occur in a widely varying
environmental setting. Unlike other industries, operators of
mines cannot locate their mining sites in settings where
compliance with national design standards might be feasible.
Mining can only take place where the minerals are located. For
these reasons, a host of authorities, including the National
Academy of Science, EPA, the Western Governors Association,
have recognized that site-specific flexibility is an absolute
necessity for regulations affecting hardrock mining.
In conclusion, Newmont believes the 3809 program has worked
well to protect public health and the environment and public
lands, a conclusion shared by the Western Governors
Association. Despite their assertions to the contrary,
environmental groups have failed to identify any but a small
number of isolated instances where modern mining operations on
public lands subject to modern environmental programs have led
to significant environmental problems that could have been
avoided by more prescriptive national standards.
Instead, critics of industry focus on environmental
problems existing at historic sites, while mining occurred long
before the advent of 3809 regulations. In Newmont's view, the
current regulatory scheme should not be altered unless BLM can
show that significant real world problems exist that cannot be
addressed under the existing program. Certainly no such showing
has been or in our view could be made with respect to public
lands located in Nevada. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Jones may be found at end of
hearing.]
Mrs. Cubin. Thank you, Mr. Jones, and now if you don't
mind, we would like to just ask each one of you a few questions
and we will start with Representative Gibbons.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you, Madam Chair. First, let me ask for
all of you, maybe, a brief comment on industry standards in
terms of reclamation, environmental practices, et cetera. Do
you feel that the industry standards today with regard to those
issues, whether it is environmental protection, reclamation,
habitat protection, have been met and are constantly being
reviewed within the industry itself to step forward at the
proper time to advance both the industry and the environment
within your operations?
Mr. Upton. Yes, I believe they do. I know through our trade
associations, the Nevada Mining Association in particular, we
share a great deal in terms of our own individual standards
within companies and between companies, and share that work
that we are doing collectively, and I think, yes, the standard,
the industry standard, is at a level that challenges or at
least represents well the regulatory standards.
Mr. Espell. Just to respond to that a little bit
differently, I am also, aside from my duties at Barrick, I am
the Reclamation Subcommittee Chairman for the Nevada Mining
Association. We have both, through the NMA and through the
individual companies, under the current regulatory framework,
there is enough flexibility that we have a very cooperative
agreement and a working relationship between the Federal
regulators that the BLM--and the State agencies, where we work
together to identify reclamation needs and objectives, and in a
very cooperative spirit come up with advancing techniques to be
able to meet those needs and under the current system, those
sorts of things are possible and are being done.
Mr. Jones. To give you the short answer, yes. Newmont
endorses the Nevada standard. We apply that standard worldwide.
It doesn't matter if we are in Peru or Uzbekistan or Indonesia.
We find the Nevada standard for our industry provides a balance
between economic factors and protection of the environment.
With respect to 3809, the definition of undue and
unnecessary degradation allows for changes without having to
rewrite it, I think this is the keystone of 3809, and so allows
for an evolution of techniques and technical problems,
resolution of technical problems. As we get better at
reclamation and get better at operating, then those standards
become commonplace in the industry and the 3809 is then updated
by applying the unnecessary and undue degradation rule.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you. Now, if the industry itself has
certain standards that are met, and perhaps, as you have
indicated, they are uniform throughout most companies that
operate mining operations here in Nevada to meet those permit
requirements. Let me ask you just a two-part question. One, if
they do have, and they do meet, and this is not something like
re-inventing the wheel, as we have done on these standards, why
does it take so long for a mine to get permitted here in Nevada
and how can we, as a State, and you as an industry, work with
the BLM to actually expedite that process, because, after all,
we also want to hear solutions, not just complaints. We want to
hope that through this process, you can help us communicate
with the bureaucracy in its reevaluation of 3809 to make
better, but better for everybody, not just for one group or one
special interest. So my question would be, if you didn't
understand it, I would repeat it, but I hope you understood it.
Mr. Jones. I think I do. I would like to think that we hold
ourselves to a higher standard than other mining companies, but
I am sure I would get disagreement here. Permitting takes long,
and that is probably some of our frustration with the process.
It does take long lead times to permit. We found at Newmont
that working with the BLM district to let them know our
upcoming schedules, what we have on the agenda, so that they
can clear their schedules to work on the documents, and then we
hold meetings when we finish, to discuss what went right, what
went wrong, where can we streamline the process to make it more
efficient.
I don't think, including the BLM review of notice level
activities, that is now being required, has helped because we
have now taken people who are overworked and don't have enough
resources, and we have burdened them with more work. I think
that we should consider giving BLM more resources to help us
with the permitting process.
Mr. Espell. To add to that a little bit differently, some
of the things we have seen that add to the overall timing of
the permitting process is any time there is a duplication in
the Federal permitting process, duplication of things which are
already permitted and evaluated under the current State
programs, we have been working very closely with the Nevada
State office of the BLM to identify the sources of duplication
and develop MOUs between the State and the BLM in order to be
able to try to avoid those duplications. The changes that are
proposed in the 3809 regulations actually go countercurrent to
that philosophy and incite more duplication as opposed to
trying to encourage a lack of duplication of the programs.
Mr. Upton. Well, yes, sir, our permitting process has been
lengthy, and for many reasons, understandably so. I think our
biggest concern is the 3809 rules being contemplated would only
increase that. The bonding regulations that were adopted have
again added to staff time at the agencies to where they are now
required to spend much more time reviewing notice level
activities and the bonding requirements now in place for those
and so it is just a plethora of additional review and
requirements and time on the part of the staff that in turn
builds time for us on the other hand, too, to get them the
information they need, so it is both, yes, we have had lengthy
processes, but we see what is being talked about as only
aggravating that and exasperating an already overload situation
with agencies.
Mrs. Cubin. Thank you very much. I just have a couple
questions. Mr. Upton, I will start with you. You mentioned in
your testimony that one size-fits-all site requirements won't
work for hardrock mining. And there will be testimony later on
today from people who think that the Federal Government
shouldn't own any lands, but since they do right now, what I
want to ask you is what should the Federal role actually be?
I think that most of the people that I know, that I work
with, think that the States can do, will do, and do a good job
of protecting the environment. In Wyoming I know environmental
standards are higher, many times, than Federal standards, and
their own State legislature has imposed that level. So what
should the Federal role be, and what should the State role be
and what should the role of the industry be?
Mr. Upton. Well, we support a strong oversight role by the
Federal agencies, but we think that the site-specific
conditions that occur within a State, and the complexity to
those clearly lie with the State agencies, and even the local
government agencies to have a strong role in determining the
permit requirements and the compliance requirements for those
operations, and that, yes, the Federal Government has a role in
providing oversight and consistency between States, but on the
same hand, it is important to have those site-specific
conditions recognized in the permitting process and compliance
aspects of an operation, so that we are dealing with the proper
aspects out there in that sense.
Mrs. Cubin. So you said, and I don't want to be putting
words in your mouth, I want your opinion. You said that they
should coordinate and see that there is consistency among the
States, and did you say set standards?
Mr. Upton. No, I said the States should be in the standard
setting role.
Mrs. Cubin. In a couple words again, what should the
Federal role be?
Mr. Upton. Oversight in the context of looking at the
standards between States, and applying and assuring some
reasonable level of consistency between States.
Mrs. Cubin. So is it your opinion, and maybe you don't
know, because I don't, I have to vote on all the States issues,
but is it your opinion that the State standards are adequate to
protect the environment in land, water and air?
Mr. Upton. In the States we operate in, yes.
Mrs. Cubin. OK. Thank you very much.
Mr. Espell, you mentioned in your testimony that you have
had pretty decent experiences in dealing with public land
managers who you work with and so a lot of times I think when I
am saying things that are critical of the Federal agencies, I
don't make it clear that generally I am speaking of the
Washington bureaucracy and how their decisions negatively
impact people on the land.
My experience has been uniformly, when I am dealing with
local land managers, that generally they do a good job, they
care about the land, they are our neighbors and they are our
friends and family, and I think you referred to that somewhat.
I mentioned also in my opening statement the leadership trip to
the West and how the things we had learned there, there were
three things that we wanted, three messages we wanted them to
go home with. That was the States can, will, and do a good job
of regulating and enforcing environmental statutes; that
resources can be developed on the public lands as well as the
private, of course, and still allow us to be good stewards of
the land and that multiple use is good land management policy.
Could you just go into a little bit more for me, what sort
of problems you have had with--maybe just give a couple
examples, of Federal dictates that aren't good for the economy,
good for the resource, good for anything, where there may have
been a little bit of disagreement at the local level.
Mr. Espell. Sure. I think Nevada is probably the best
example, although my experience has been completely in Nevada.
From what I have seen of other programs, Nevada has an
excellent working relationship between the State agencies and
the BLM, and other Federal agencies, which, you know, reside
here, the State offices of those agencies. That working
relationship and that cooperation actually extends all the way
to the initial development of the State programs, which were
based on consistency between the State programs and the Federal
programs.
In Nevada, for example, a reclamation permit application
for the State and the BLM's plan of operations is the same
application. It is a one-stop shopping kind of an idea. That
cooperative agreement, which reduces the permitting time and
the burden on the companies, is effectively destroyed by
changes in the Federal regulations, which then drive
inconsistencies between the Federal programs and the State
programs, so, therefore, what I see is where the model should
be what we have developed here in Nevada, for a cooperative
agreement between the Federal and State programs, where the
differences in requirements are transparent to the operator,
the program is developed in accordance between State and
Federal programs. Anything that is done on the Federal level,
seems to be trying to do just the opposite to separate and
provide inconsistencies between the programs.
Mrs. Cubin. Thank you. Mr. Jones, does your company go
beyond what is required in the permits on reclamation and
repairing maybe old damage? I think Mr. Upton's company has
just recently gotten an award for that and I guess what I am
trying to find out is do other companies do that as well, do
they invest money, really beyond what is required of them, to
try to be good neighbors or do they not?
Mr. Jones. Yes, ma'am. We also received an award in 1995,
the Governors Award for reclamation excellence for riparian
habitat upgrading. We worked with local ranchers and our TS
ranch to improve the habitat. Last year, we were involved in a
cooperative effort to reseed fire-burned, fire-damaged acres,
and the benefit is to wildlife and to the ranchers, and to us
as a landowner, in that it made the land more valuable. We in
mining recognize that we have impacts on the Earth, and that is
the nature of our business, and we accept responsibility for
this. And in order to compensate for those impacts, it is
necessary to do certain things, and we take that on and we do
those things.
Mrs. Cubin. Well, thank you. I gave a pitch for Barrick and
I didn't know you had won an award. Congratulations, I am glad
you have, but I guess I can't leave Placer out--excuse me, I
can't leave out Barrick, right.
Mr. Espell. Yes, we have several different programs going
on in the State. The one we are currently involved in is a
restoration project at the Marys River, slightly east and north
of Elko, in improving riparian habitat, actually reestablishing
the cutthroat trout habitat in the upper regions of the area of
the drainage, which actually, the head water is up in the
Jarbidge mountains. Previously, there has been culverts and
different things that have been put in the river that we are
working with with the BLM and Trout Unlimited to actually
engineer stream restoration.
Mrs. Cubin. I didn't know there were cutthroat trout out
there. I thought Wyoming was one of the last places, beautiful
places on Earth that had cutthroat trout.
Well, Bill, since I goofed up on you twice, would you like
to tell us about your award?
Mr. Upton. The award that Placer received was for
reclamation in our Alligator Ridge mine where we stepped out,
and because of the long history of mineral exploration at that
site by a number of different operators, and the need to bring
up current reclamation in that area for a lot of the past
exploration areas, that many of them were even pre-3809 areas.
Our Bald Mountain operation went ahead and reclaimed a
number of areas that were not necessarily our responsibility,
but brought them up to date and that was in essence the
foundation for the award. They did an excellent job with
reclamation with it, but primarily the stepping out and
recognizing there was a need there. I think our best successes
have been where we began working with local agencies, Federal
and State, one on one, even outside the permitting process
where we can collaborate on whether it is wildlife habitat
enhancement or reclamation. That has been our real big success
story, where it is not something that is written in the permit,
it is something that, on the grounds, needs to be done. It is
the right thing to do and that is where our real successes have
been for our company, and I think the industry in Nevada.
Mrs. Cubin. This might not be a fair question and if you
don't have an opinion, that is fine. But since hardrock mines
don't pay royalties yet, I understand, and that might be why
you don't have an opinion on this, but the resource advisory
councils that were established in land use and planning and so
on, recommended, among other things, eco credits. Do you have
an opinion on how eco credits would work in your own industry?
Mr. Upton. Well, I think the best example we have would be
in wetland litigation where we deal with no doubt loss issues
and mitigation. I think there is an example of some sort for
eco credits where we do, if we are going to effect wetlands and
water in the U.S., we can mitigate those impacts by going out
into adjacent areas and enhancing wetlands or creating new
wetlands and we do get credit there, so I am sure there will be
opportunities to work with a system like that. I am not real
familiar with how it would be applied in hardrock industry, but
I am sure the experiences we have had on working with offsite
wild habitat work and so forth would work well in those
situations.
Mrs. Cubin. And the bottom line would be to improve the
environment, so do you think that there is a potential for
that, through the use of the eco credit system.
Mr. Upton. There seems to be, yes. I think we are well
versed at working with ecosystem management and looking at the
whole picture, so I would think, yes, hardrock mining could
work with something like that.
Mrs. Cubin. And I have exceeded my questioning time but I
would appreciate a brief response from the other two.
Mr. Espell. I guess to followup on what Bill said, the only
current system that we work under that is similar to that is
under the Corps of Engineers 404 permit for wetlands
mitigation. I think most of the mining companies right now are
already doing something like that, without any sort of benefit
of some sort of eco-credits or something, that the companies on
their own are performing that right now without a push.
Mr. Jones. First, let me correct a fact? We don't currently
pay royalties to the U.S. Government, but we pay royalties. We
pay royalties to private landowners, where we have operations
and we pay a net proceeds tax to the State of Nevada.
Mrs. Cubin. Thank you.
Mr. Jones. I know you are aware of that and I wanted to set
the record straight.
I am not very well versed in coal and coal regulation and
so on and I am not able to comment knowledgeably on ecosystem
credits. I think there is room to talk about them and I think
probably we are doing a lot of the things now, but I can't give
you an intelligent answer whether I support that or not. Thank
you.
Mrs. Cubin. Thank you very much. I do appreciate your
testimony, and the answers to the questions and now you should
go back and make some more net proceeds for Nevada. I would
like to call the next panel forward, Dr. Tom Myers, Gene Gustin
and Edward Presley.
I will remind the witnesses that you are allowed 5 minutes
for your testimony. The traffic light will be right there in
front of you. You can't miss it, and I will try to hold my
questioning to 5 minutes next time, too. We will begin the
testimony with Dr. Tom Myers, Consultant to Great Basin Mine
Watch.
STATEMENT OF TOM MYERS, CONSULTANT TO GREAT BASIN MINE WATCH
Mr. Myers. Madam Chairman, Congressman Gibbons, on behalf
of the Sierra Club and Great Basin Mine Watch, thank you for
this opportunity to testify this morning. My expertise and
research on this issue primarily concerns water quantity and
the impacts of mining on groundwater hydrology and the surface
expression of groundwater, primarily springs, streams, rivers,
streams and riparian areas.
My invitation to speak specified this and asked me to
address water resources and the regulations regarding water
resources. For my research, I have used public information
obtained from the Nevada State Engineers Office, the U.S.
Geological Survey, Nevada Division of Environmental Protection
and the Bureau of Land Management, as well as data published in
environmental impact statements.
I will focus my oral discussion on the hydrologic impacts
and needed mitigation. My written testimony includes many
specific examples and specifies many changes in 3809
regulations that we believe would help. I have also attached
copies of a couple of articles and abstracts I have recently
published to my written testimony.
Pit dewater imposed four primary hydrologic impacts: First,
groundwater levels lower in the vicinity of the mine, which
impacts spring and surface water, by changing the flow gradient
in the vicinity of the mine. For example, there has been a
spring about 7 miles from the Lone Tree Mine, which went dry,
presumably due to dewatering. Second, the open pit and drawdown
cone around the pit are a deficit to be made up after mining
and dewatering ceases.
The pit was originally all rock and pore spaces filled with
water would have made up only about 1 percent of the pit and up
to 20 percent of the pit that was in alluvium. After mining
ceases, pit lakes will form with water that must come from
somewhere. In this regard, the two most impactful mines on
local groundwater deficits are the Twin Creeks Mine, northeast
of Winnemucca and the Lone Tree Mine, between Battle Mountain
and Winnemucca. Twin Creeks will create a 460,000-acre-foot pit
lake, which will be the second largest man-made lake in Nevada,
if we include Lake Mead.
The Lone Tree Mine deficit of almost 1.1 million acre feet
sits just 2 miles from the Humboldt River. Third, quality of
water in the pit lakes depends on the source of water refilling
them. BLM predicts this water quality using complicated
geochemistry models. However, the models depend on the quality
of the hydrologic data, including predictions of the inflow to
the pit.
I presented a paper 2 weeks ago at American Chemical
Society which shows the very reasonable assumptions of the
geology into the pit led to estimates of inflow at the pipeline
deposit pit for the refill to vary from 8 to over 100 years.
Fourth, pit lakes will evaporate water in perpetuity. This
represents a permanent loss of water from the flow in local
basins.
The pipeline pit at full development after the several
piecemeal expansions are complete will evaporate well over 10
percent of the total recharge. Cumulative impacts of mining are
rarely considered although NEPA requires such consideration.
For example, the Humboldt River watershed contains 18 mines
that are either currently or soon to go below the water table
and require dewatering. Total deficits from these mines
represent 62 percent of the water stored in the surface aquifer
of the Humboldt River.
Total deficits in the Humboldt River Basin equal more than
25 years of the entire river flow at the city of Winnemucca.
Fortunately, I do not own water rights or property I want to
develop downstream on the Humboldt River. It cannot be
overemphasized that these impacts are unprecedented in the
history of mining anywhere in the world.
While mining companies return large profits from
underregulated mining, society is allowing a massive
uncontrolled experiment on the environment of northern Nevada.
It is not too late to do anything about it, but we are reaching
that point. The rest of this testimony includes discussion
about what the BLM could currently be doing and needed changes
in the regulatory framework. Many of the impacts discussed
above could be avoided or mitigated by reclamation of the pits,
including complete or partial backfilling or through adequate
bonding to either remedy or compensate individuals adversely
impacted in the future.
Section 3809 provides BLM's regulations to govern hardrock
mining permitting. Currently, BLM is attempting to modify or
reform these regulations. First, I emphasize that the BLM,
under current regualtions, has the authority to adequately
regulate and mitigate these impacts. They are reluctant to
assert the authority so regulatory reform will help them in
this process, as I will elaborate below or actually in my
written testimony. BLM is required to prevent unnecessary and
undue degradation.
Unfortunately, we focus on surface-to-surface, while
ignoring the long distance impacts of drawdown and water
contamination, impacts which may not occur until after mining
ceases are even more difficult for the agency to consider.
However, the impacts of drawdown caused by dewatering and pit
refill clearly impact surface water and land.
For example, drawdown has already caused sink holes to form
in Maggie Creek. It has caused springs to dry. When stream flow
was substantially reduced, the riparian vegetation may dry,
which is also a surface impact. This type of impact clearly
reduces the abil-
ity of land, far from the site, to support multiple use,
including grazing and recreation. I see I am out of time and I
have a couple pages to go, but I am going to jump to the end to
finish up then.
The Sierra Club and Great Basin Mine Watch strongly support
needed changes in Section 3809 regulations. We also support
enactment of the Rahall bill, which is H.R. 253, which I
believe is currently in front of this Subcommittee. Many of our
concerns will be remedied. Many of the suggested regulatory
changes would be codified. It specifically refers to the
protection of water resources. It establishes a fund to clean
up degradation to surface and importantly water resources
caused by previous mining.
The gold mining industry has expanded from a million ounces
in 1980 to 13 million ounces today. This is a remarkable
expansion and has led to rapid growth in rural Nevada and other
States. It is a very important part of the economy of Nevada
and should remain so. But future citizens of northern Nevada,
ranchers, farmers, Native Americans and cities should not be
paying the debts created by present day mining. We request
baseline standards to protect the environment of northern
Nevada and the Western United States. Thank you for this
opportunity to testify.
[The statement of Mr. Myers may be found at end of
hearing.]
Mrs. Cubin. Thank you, Dr. Myers, and I regret that we
don't have time for your entire testimony to be given verbally,
but it will be in the record.
And the next witness we will call on now is Gene Gustin,
Public Land Use Advisory Council to the Elko County Commission.
STATEMENT OF GENE GUSTIN, PUBLIC LAND USE ADVISORY COUNCIL TO
THE ELKO COUNTY COMMISSION
Mr. Gustin. Well, Madam Chairman and Congressman Gibbons,
welcome to Elko. I sincerely appreciate your willingness to
conduct this oversight hearing on this most vital issue to this
area. More importantly, that you are reaching out for
constituent input is very encouraging, and I am also encouraged
by your opening remarks on this subject. Having been involved
in the mining industry in the Western United States for some 27
years, in several different capacities ranging from tramp
miner, to superintendent of mining of two large operations, to
mining claim holder, to owner of an independent contracting
business serving mining. I have been afforded many different
perspectives on the evolution of the regulatory regime and the
political and populist perceptions of the value of mining in a
modern day life to this country. But how these perceptions and
attitudes interface with reality and legality is the subject at
hand today.
I believe the current efforts to rewrite, through
administrative fiat, mining rules and regulations that have
taken over 130 years to evolve and be refined is at best the
height of bureaucratic arrogance and at worst, a crude
misdirected illegal power play that simply cannot be tolerated
by Congress, the States, the courts or the people of this
country.
Why are we bringing forth words here today to our duly
elected representatives asking them to rein in the activities
of a government employee to run wild? An appointee, within
whose purported purview it is to write the regulations,
implement the rules, review and adjudicate the systems
concerning basic individual rights which violate the separation
of powers doctrine. This Western United States subject of this
medieval realm who thought he owned the possessory title in
mining, grazing, water or agriculture rights and the rights to
make improvements on such is then dragged through a kangaroo
gathering called the Court of Administrative Appeals where the
legislative, executive and judicial branches have been rolled
into one easy instrument of rule without recourse.
And what is the alleged mechanism justifying this complete
bypass of our system of checks and balances and separation of
powers, the purported proprietary interest of the Federal
Government in 87 percent of the State of Nevada. Where did we
go wrong? A series of Supreme Court decisions, most recently,
the decision of Printz vs. United States, on June 27, 1997,
where Justice Scalia instructed us, ``The separation of two
sovereign spheres is one of the Constitution's structural
protections of liberty. Just as the separation and independence
of the coordinated branches of the Federal Government serve to
prevent the accumulation of excessive power and in one branch
the healthy balance of power between States and Federal
Government will reduce the risk of tyranny and abuse from
either front.''
They even commented in that decision on what a novel
phenomenon this was, as they hadn't started seeing this type of
overregulation until the 1970's. Finally, and I quote, we held
in New York that Congress cannot compel the States to enact or
enforce a Federal regulatory program. Today, we hold that
Congress cannot circumvent that prohibition by constricting the
States officers directly. The Federal Government may neither
issue directives requiring the States to investigate particular
problems nor command the States officers or those of their
political subdivisions to administer and enforce a Federal
regulatory program.
It matters not whether policymaking is involved and no
case-by-case weighing of the burdens of benefits is necessary.
Such commands are fundamentally incompatible with our
constitutional system of dual sovereignty. Accordingly, the
judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is
reversed.
Now, I know the Honorable Members here today are familiar
with and understand the intent of the court's instruction, so I
ask you today, are Members of Congress ready to tackle this
issue politically and legally or will the burden fall to the
directly affected parties yet again? Mining is America's
financial backbone. The mining laws are the last great vestige
of acquiring proprietary interests by common law principle,
mixing sweat with soil to earn equity. Mining has made America
strong without subsidy.
I have witnessed 70 percent of the mining claims be
regulated and taxed out of the business in the last several
years. I have experienced a 40 percent reduction in my personal
business this year because of an illegal bonding rule
implementation. Mining has been under an escalating P.R.
Assault for the past several years. We try to respond with
reason and logic and compliance and what does it get us, more
assault and more restrictions.
The current attempt to rewrite through 3809, through the
administrator, I believe, is a misdirected effort and I think
that the Congress ought to challenge, legally, in the Supreme
Court, to as-
sure that its role in the legislative process is properly
assured. And I see my time is out, but, again, I thank you for
the opportunity to present my views on this. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Gustin may be found at end of
hearing.]
Mrs. Cubin. Thank you, Mr. Gustin. Our next witness will be
Edward Presley, National Director of County Alliance to restore
the economy and environment.
STATEMENT OF EDWARD L. PRESLEY, NATIONAL DIRECTOR, COUNTY
ALLIANCE TO RESTORE THE ECONOMY & ENVIRONMENT (CAREE)
Mr. Presley. Good morning, Madam Chair and members. I would
like to also welcome you to Elko, and I thank you for the
opportunity to give testimony here today before your Committee.
I am just going to make reference, Madam Chair, to my written
statement and request unanimous consent it be submitted for the
record then.
Mrs. Cubin. Without objection.
Mr. Presley. I will give a little different view than what
you have heard from the industry. Obviously, I am one of those
working in research and working on legal defense teams and
plaintiff teams, suing the Federal Government, being sued by
the Federal Government. I am that one that brings that
unorthodox position that the Federal Government does not own
the land out here. And we have that position and that question
before the Supreme Court of the United States now in a petition
for writ of cert for the October term in a case called United
States vs. Gardner.
What I want to provoke you into realizing here today is
that we can talk all about what has gone on with Mr. Babbitt
violating the Administrative Procedures Act. We see that the
mining companies up here who have billions of dollars invested
out here are held at bay and under extortive measures by the
Federal agencies and the local managers, and, Madam Chair, I
would respectfully take some issue with you on your statement
that the local land managers for the Federal Government are
doing a good job and it is the bureaucrats back in Washington.
I somewhat find out there is a bit of a roll reversal that
occurs there, simply because I was the plaintiff in a case
called Barton v. Babbitt where we had to bring a civil rights
lawsuit because of our activist measures that we took out here
in the public lands issues that the United States Attorney's
Office was the nest for the Federal agencies and the local
people going in there trying to get criminal indictments on us
to commit a chill factor on our activism out here, and we
successfully brought that, which then shifted from a criminal
investigation against us and then brought about the United
States vs. Nye County lawsuit, that was nationally known out
here.
Now, I don't want to brand all Federal agents out here and
all Federal employees, but I do want to tell you that I would
have not known about that had a Federal agent not supplied me
with the minutes of the meetings that occurred inside the
United States Attorneys Office when they were trying to indict
us, and Mr. Gustin was one of these plaintiffs here, too. What
we have and what I have given with the visual up here is that
you see a map of Nevada. Now Federal agencies will color the
Western United States in various different colors out here to
commit an optical illusion out here, but that is the truth,
that 87 percent of black up there puts us under a quasi type of
military occupation out here, and I will tell you why it makes
such a bold statement.
As long as the Federal agencies are in charge of that much
of the State, there is no common law, there is no State law
that is applicable, because they operate under only admiralty
and equity jurisdiction. A lot of people do not understand
this, that the Federal agencies have no authority to protect
rights out there on the public lands. Only you at Congress, and
I would direct your attention to the very last page of what I
submitted for the record. The courts have told us this, and on
page 19 of our brief to the Supreme Court, listen to what the
Court said back in 1850, and it is still good law today, under
Downes and Midwell. The Constitution deals with the States,
their people and their representatives.
The sole object of the territorial clause was to transfer
to the new government the Northwest territory and to give the
power to apply that territory to the objects and dictates by
the States. The Constitution--now listen to this very clearly.
The Constitution does not extend to the territories of its own
force. We are not under any constitutional protections and that
is the problem that is out here, and if you don't quit claim
the land over to the States, and if you do keep control of it,
you have to remove all rulemaking from the Federal agencies.
You cannot have any police power that is vested in these
Federal agencies. It must be invested in the State.
You must also statutorily remove all types of litigation
that go on in public land matters and remove that from the
Federal judiciary and the administrative law judiciary that has
been set up. You have it under your power under Article 1, that
is the only way we will be able to keep our rights intact out
here and I thank you very much for your time and attention.
[The statement of Mr. Presley may be found at end of
hearing.]
Mrs. Cubin. Thank you for your time. And we will start the
questioning with Representative Gibbons.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and first, let me
address a brief question to Mr. Presley, who has just recently
finished his testimony, and I would ask a very brief analysis
of how you came about the conclusion that the Federal
Government does not own the land here in Nevada, if you could
do that very briefly for us.
Mr. Presley. Thank you, Congressman, good question. It was
in 1993, I had a client that had a problem with the Bureau of
Land Management on grazing, and, also, there was some mining
problems in Clark County, dealing with the desert tortoise
issue down there, of which there was a full force and final
decision that came out, full force and effect decision that
came out to remove grazing from the desert tortoise habitat.
Now, they are under the Endangered Species Act, and the
first thing I noticed, since we had come through the Nevada
legislature in dealing with AB-77, the so-called sage brush
rebellion 2, was that it didn't appear that the Federal
Government owned any property out here, I will say, except
Nellis Air Force Base and that is within Article 1, Section 8,
Clause 17. So my forte is in the Freedom of Information Act and
I performed a Freedom of Information Act request to the
Department of Interior, BLM, and their Solicitor took charge of
my request and came back and said they had no documents
responsive to my request when I asked them for the deed to this
land.
But since then, what has happened out here is that they
have claimed ownership under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of
1848 when we had the conquest against Mexico. They are claiming
that as their jurisdiction here today, which clearly makes that
black encampment there of Nevada a territory and enclave of Mr.
Babbitt, and there is no State there. The only place that there
is State, members of the Committee, the only place that is the
State of Nevada are those white spots up there and they are
noncontiguous and we are beholding to these Federal agencies to
get from point A to point B, so we are not a complete State.
And Madam Chairman, you have the same thing in Wyoming, Mr.
Hansen would have it over in Utah, and in Alaska, Mr. Young
certainly deals with that. That is what brought the question
about they didn't have it and I tried to zero all of my
research and for the arguments and for the Nye County case and
now the Gardner case, I zeroed it in that they do not own the
land because they couldn't produce title and that is the
question we have before the Supreme Court of the United States,
which I am here to say, unequivocally has never been before the
Supreme Court of the United States in the 200 plus years of its
existence. Thank you.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you. Dr. Myers. I presume your Ph.D. is
in science of some sort.
Mr. Myers. My Ph.D. is in hydrology.
Mr. Gibbons. Hydrology. How would you abate or stop the
water table drawdown due to an open pit mine? How would you
stop that, in a surrounding area?
Mr. Myers. During mining, the water table has to drawdown.
Mr. Gibbons. We understand that, how would you stop that.
Mr. Myers. Through recharge in the local basin. Part of
what I had to leave out was testimony that, in fact, there are
a few mines that are recharging the local basin. It is not
working as well as it is supposed to. There are other mines
that should be recharging better. We have argued, in
environmental documents, certain mines should be recharging. We
will argue it is only done where it is a very inexpensive thing
to do.
Mr. Gibbons. Let me move on, and understanding that issue,
you talked about some mines that are not recharging and
suppose, for example, let's take the Lone Tree Mine, which
takes its water, cleans it, puts it into the Humboldt River and
sends it down to Rye Patch Reservoir for farmers and ranchers
to use. Is there a problem with the water quality in that water
they are putting in the Humboldt?
Mr. Myers. I don't recall constituent problems, I mean,
specifics. I know there were temperature problems, the
temperature in the Humboldt River increases rather
substantially from just above their discharge point to just
below and that is because the water is geothermally heated that
they are dewatering.
Mr. Gibbons. Let me ask another quick question. If water
rights, in probably 16 of the 17 Western States are State
prerogative, I mean a State jurisdictional area, why should the
Federal Government step in and deal with water, water rights?
Mr. Myers. Well, for one, the 3809 regulations specifically
state the BLM is required to enforce State law and we would
argue that if the State is not adequately doing it, then the
BLM is required to do that.
Mr. Gibbons. And you have a complaint with Nevada's
environmental treatment of its water within a State then?
Mr. Myers. We do.
Mr. Gibbons. Then it would be better, I presume, under your
testimony to go tell the State of Nevada to change its water
quality laws.
Mr. Myers. But since we are focusing on 3809 today, it
specifically states, in several different locations in those
regulations that the BLM is required--excuse me, is required to
enforce State regulations. It doesn't say where the State fails
to do so, but it says the BLM is responsible for seeing to it
that that is enforced, and that would be a BLM oversight. I
mean, previous speakers have talked about the BLM having a
responsibility for oversight.
Mr. Gibbons. You also mentioned that due to the drawdown on
some of these areas, the water table has lowered, and some
people should be compensated for that. Who is not now
compensated for the drawdown of the water table that should be
compensated for?
Mr. Gibbons. We would suggest that most of the impacts will
occur, actually, after mining has ceased, after the pits have
refilled, when you draw the water table down a thousand feet,
1,300 feet at a couple of places, that that drawdown cone
continues to expand after mining ceases. The pit refills, I
mean, for example, you mentioned Lone Tree, there is 1.1
million acre feet of deficit being created around that mine.
The Twin Creeks Mine has 660,000 acre feet of deficit. That
water is going to come from somewhere and we don't know--I am
not going to say it is all coming from the Humboldt River.
What I am saying is we don't know where it is coming from
and for those reasons we would suggest adequate mitigation,
bonding and escrow account would be set-aside so 30 years from
now the people who are affected could be compensated or the
situation could be remedied.
Mr. Gibbons. Mr. Gustin, let me turn to you now briefly in
the time I have remaining. What suggestions would you have as
to how to better resolve the conflicts that you stated in your
testimony, in terms of regulatory authority, State powers,
Federal powers, what would you suggest?
Mr. Gustin. Well, to me, the only way this is going to be
resolved successfully is that the people who live in the areas
that are affected have a lot more authority to say how things
are done. I realize that in general, that might create a little
fear in the hearts of mining industries, but I am pretty sure
that when the State assumes a much larger role, that you will
see consistency from States.
The State of Nevada has been a leader in mining regulation,
and it works well. We have the most experience with that, and
as has been previously testified, I believe that the experience
that is gained in places like Nevada can be transferred
anywhere else and a lot of States look to Nevada for leadership
on this issue.
Mr. Gibbons. You mentioned also in your testimony that your
business has been specifically impaired or harmed by current
regulation changes, and maybe you could help this Committee a
little by explaining how the new bonding requirements or the
changes in 3809 have specifically impacted your business and as
you see it, how has it specifically impacted mining operations
on public land in the State of Nevada.
Mr. Gustin. In early March, while I have been in business
for roughly 18, 19 years in the exploratory end of things, in
early March, it looked like another routine year as near we
could tell. We were getting our level of inquiries as to
drilling on projects on public lands.
Once it was announced that there were proposed changes on a
30-day comment period on the bonding, for almost 6 months,
nobody knew what to do, nobody could get drilling permits. I am
sure that our businesses suffered 50 percent as well as many
other people I am aware of in the industry. Many times, the
regulatory agencies failed to consider not only the direct but
the indirect impacts, I mean, all the way down to the mom-and-
pop grocery stores and gas stations and everybody in the State
of Nevada had become very dependent upon the expenditure of
exploration dollars in this State, which are currently off,
probably 70 percent, from where they were 3 to 4 years ago.
I don't know how 1997 is going to shape up, but I am sure
it is going to be a significant decrease, even the major mining
companies had difficulties going outside their operations plan
area to even get a small permit for any level of disturbance,
so myself, we have seen our business off 40 percent, cutting
salaries and having to lay people off and that kind of thing. I
don't see any resolve until the States have more of an ability
to affect this process and it is not controlled out of
Washington, DC, or at least if it is controlled out of
Washington, DC, it is through our duly elected representatives
here today, and, you know, we have about compromised ourself
out of existence here, trying to get through this, and I don't
follow the industry closely per se, but, you know, when you
have large capital investments, and you have to project over
long periods of time, these kinds of attack through the
regulatory process, like on bonding, it is just devastating,
just devastating, and we can't tolerate much more of that kind
of activity.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Mrs. Cubin. Thank you. I think I will start with Dr. Myers.
I am not trained in hydrology, as Representative Gibbons said
earlier. I am a chemist, so I do know, or at least have an
opinion on, I guess, as every other scientist would have to
say, on what is good science and what is not good science, and
that is one of the key areas of conflict over a lot of
environmental things. People who don't know much about science
and scientific models don't know how to judge whether they are
getting good science or not, and I find today I am sort of
placed in that position because I don't know much about
hydrology. So I guess I just should ask, does the State--I am
sure the State engineer has seen your opinion and testimony
today. And does he give credence to your analysis or are you at
odds.
Mr. Myers. Well, I hesitate to speak for the State
engineer. He acknowledges that there could be impacts in the
Humboldt River Basin, but he has not--he, of course, does not--
well, basically, about 15 years ago, the State of Nevada made a
decision that it was going to support the mining industry and I
believe we are reluctant to really strongly enforce it.
I mean, there is a policy of the State engineer to not
allow groundwater withdrawals to exceed the recharge in a
basin, unless it is on a temporary basis, and that is what we
are doing, you know, some of these withdrawals exceed the
recharge, but only temporarily. We, of course, have a concern
then. I mean, our mine is projected to last to the year 2036.
That begins to stretch the definition of temporary, I think.
Mrs. Cubin. I don't want to put words in your mouth, just
as I didn't before, but you seem to be saying to me that if the
State engineer won't enforce Nevada's ground water laws, then
the BLM ought to step in and do that; is that right.
Mr. Myers. I believe they have the authority--well, the
State engineer is required to interpret the laws, and to
enforce them as he sees fit, and he is doing so, we would argue
about that interpretation, I think is the best way I should
characterize that.
Mrs. Cubin. OK, then, question. Do you think the BLM ought
to come in then and enforce or interpret Nevada's environmental
laws?
Mr. Myers. I think they have a requirement to, at least
with regard to, for example, the Clean Water Act, them and the
EPA together. They need to protect the public lands of Nevada.
Their job is to prevent unnecessary and undue degradation. If
contaminated water or drawn-down springs is causing unnecessary
and undue degradation, and we would argue that it does, then I
believe the BLM has the authority and needs to do more about
that, and the problem is that some of these impacts may be 7
miles offsite. How do we argue the current regulations specify
or imply surface disturbance and it implies, due to the mine,
right at the mine, but a dry spring, 5 miles away, is also an
impact on the surface.
Mrs. Cubin. But Nevada does, in fact, have primacy on the
Clean Water Act, and the Federal Government granted that
primacy, so for me, it is hard to get the balance there. I
mean, I just--well, go ahead.
Mr. Myers. The EPA also would have oversight on that
primacy, though, I believe, and I will give one specific
example. On the Jerritt Canyon Mine, we got from the Division
of Environmental Protection, about an inch of water quality
reports. All throughout them, there are specifics where water
quality standards were not met. There has been nothing done
about these particular----
Mrs. Cubin. Who is that from?
Mr. Myers. The Nevada Division of Environmental Protection.
That is why we will argue that the BLM does need to look, you
know, they have an authority there that they really should help
encourage better enforcement.
Mrs. Cubin. But Jerritt Canyon is Forest Services isn't it.
Mr. Myers. I'm sorry, Jerritt Canyon is Forest Service,
that is correct. But the point deals with, you are asking about
the State enforcing the Clean Water Act. That is the instance I
have on top of my mind at the moment. There are others. There
are instances, I believe at pipeline and others that we have
collected the data, we look at it, and we are just building a
large pile of that evidence right now.
Mrs. Cubin. And surely you can sympathize with those of us
who aren't experts in hydrology trying to figure out who to
believe.
Mr. Myers. Yes, and I would like to emphasize, what we
emphasize with regard to water quantity and hydrology, I am not
the water quality expert here. I tend to focus on water
quantity. We try to emphasize the uncertainty of the problem.
We think we are permitting with a great deal of uncertainty and
one of the only ways to get around an uncertainty is through
bonding and through mitigation.
Mrs. Cubin. And I don't know of anyone that questions
whether or not bonding is necessary. I think everyone believes
it is. I guess it is how we go about deciding what that bonding
should be that is in question--no, not what the bonding should
be, how the bonding should be derived and whether or not there
ought to be public input and apparently the BLM thinks there
should not, and I certainly think there should but that will be
decided in court.
You mentioned our colleague on the Subcommittee, Mr. Rahall
of West Virginia and the mining law reform bill that he
introduced in this Congress again, which has been referred to
this Subcommittee. What you didn't mention, so I will, and it
is not your obligation to mention it, is the fact the last
Congress did pass several reforms to the 1872 Act and that the
1872 Act has been amended many times throughout the years, and
I mentioned in my opening statement that the bill, H.R. 2491,
among other things, established a trust fund for abandoned mine
land reclamation, which we were careful to put in the hands of
the State, by the way.
What that bill did not do, and what the Rahall-Bumpers bill
wants to do, is to create incredible disincentives for
investment in public lands, because that bill requires so-
called suitability reviews. And I would say that no prudent
miner or prospector would invest the huge sums of money that
are necessary to develop a new mine if they are really subject
to anyone claiming the faintest harm to things like impairment
of view shed aesthetics, any kind of lawsuit that could come
forward.
I think what the Rahall-Bumpers bill would essentially
eliminate is any new mining period, and while I certainly agree
and respect that you have every right to hold your opinion
about that bill, I hope that--well, no, I don't hope that, but
I certainly have my right to that bill and the authority
whether or not to bring that bill in and mark it up. I think we
offered some good amendments to that 1872 bill. And to Mr.
Gustin and Mr. Presley, both of you presented very thought-
provoking testimony, and, frankly, Mr. Presley, I really,
really hope you win, but that is in the Supreme Court right
now, and so I don't think I or anyone on the Committee really
can take any sort of a professional stand on that.
As a duly elected Member of Congress, I am mindful of the
property clause, Article 4, Section 3, Clause 2, which does,
indeed, state that Congress shall have the authority to make
all the meaningful rules and regulations concerning disposal of
public property and the territories, but, unfortunately,
previous Congresses have al-
lowed the executive branch to encroach on what truly ought to
be our jurisdiction, and we are trying, we are working every
day, to try to get that authority back because I believe
constitutionally it was granted to the Congress and not to the
executive branch. Would you like to comment on that?
Mr. Presley. Yes, Madam Chair. You raise the Achilles heel
point to this whole problem we have out here with 3809
atrocities that occur. The property clause has been misapplied
inside the States, inside our State and inside your State.
However--and I fully appreciate the fact that through the
political process, that Congress has to nibble back at this,
when you have got, you know, Representatives in Congress like
Mr. Rahall, who are coming from clearly the opposite end of the
envelope. But you may want to have your legislative counsel
back there really delve into the Administrative Procedures Act
and what it actually applies to.
You see, there is a misconception out here that it applies
to the Code of Federal Regulations and gives autonomy to the
Federal agencies and promulgating rules to implement the
statutes of Congress and that simply is not the case. As a
researcher, when I go in, I don't only look at the Code of
Federal Regulations, of which 3809 came from, I will look at
their handbooks and their manuals and the Administrative
Procedures Act mainly applies to those handbooks and manuals
and that Congress still has the regulatory power over these
agencies.
And here is my specific suggestion to you, and an
introduction of legislation, that when you have something
involving the public lands out here, until the ownership issue
is addressed, or you are able to muster enough to get a quit
claim deed to the State of Nevada and the rest of them, what
you do do is you put something in the legislation that says,
``and we really mean this.''
In other words, if there are water rights out there on the
public lands and the Federal agencies are going to manage, you
must say that you cannot make those attacks on those decries
and those adjudications that have happened at State Court,
specifically, rights acquired under common law of the State
shall be supreme in the implementation and management of
Federal land managers under the public lands. That would go a
long way with us. I have been in the administrative courts. I
have brought an Administrative Procedures Act case. The Federal
judiciary of administrative courts just simply say you don't
have any rights out there.
So you see there is no remedy at law for us when we are in
the adjudicating process and that costs the client hundreds of
thousands of dollars. Just one little thing like that in
legislation that says the common law of the State that has
brought about the recognition of those rights on public lands,
grazing and whatever, mining, especially, would go a long way
in curing everything. Thank you.
Mrs. Cubin. Thank you. And thank all of you for your
testimony. We will be calling the next panel forward at this
time. Royce Hackworth, Dr. Anthony Lesperance, Zane Miles,
Michael, because I am not even going to try your last name. You
can tell me how you, how to say it when you get here, and John
Carpenter, please come forward.
Thank you. We will begin this panel with Royce Hackworth,
of the Elko County Commission.
STATEMENT OF ROYCE HACKWORTH, CHAIRMAN, ELKO COUNTY COMMISSION
Mr. Hackworth. Madam Chairman Cubin and Congresswoman
Gibbons, I am Royce Hackworth, Chairman of the Elko County
Commission and owner of Hackworth Drilling, Inc. I want to
welcome you to Elko, and I appreciate the Subcommittee coming
to the people and the area where the revision of 3809
regulations will effect. It shows the mining industry and the
residents of Elko County and the United States the willingness
and the concern we have had with getting the facts, and whether
the BLM needs to rewrite the 3809 regulations.
Elko County is 10.9 million acres in size and yet only 28
percent of it is under private ownership. The other
approximately 72 percent of the county is public lands under
Federal Management. On public lands in Elko County, the mining
industry does explore for and find many valuable mineral
deposits, such as gold, silver, copper, barite bentonite and
gypsum, just to name a few.
The mining industry creates many good paying jobs in
exploration and development of these resources. On average,
industry pays in excess of $38,000 a year plus benefits in the
jobs it creates. Jobs that are created employ people with
Ph.D.s, all the way down to those who did not complete high
school. The mining industry creates good-paying jobs for men
and women alike. These high-paying jobs are at the level where
their employees do not depend upon State and Federal subsidized
housing, food programs, health care programs, to live the
American dream.
In fact, the industry and their employees pay taxes to
support those who depend upon State and Federal programs just
to live. And with the current change in legislation coming
about, we see a shift moving back to the States and from the
States back to the county to help pay for these programs. My
concern is the change in attitude toward the mining industry by
the Federal agencies, by the implementation of undue and
excessive regulation.
What troubles me is the method and the reasoning the BLM
has used in deciding to change the 3809 regulations. I do not
believe, nor will I accept the Secretary of the Interior having
the power to circumvent the NEPA process and Congress in
changing 3809 regulations. The BLM does not clearly define a
purpose and need along with a definitive and specific proposed
action for public scoping as NEPA regulations require that EIS
briefly specify the underlying purpose and needs to which the
agency is responding in proposing the alternatives, including
the proposed actions.
When the Secretary makes a statement, it is plainly no
longer in the public interest to wait for Congress to enact
legislation. I fear for the future of our country. For the
framers of our Constitution or you as duly elected Members of
Congress should or would believe that any Federal agency could
obtain or try to circumvent the powers given to Congress. 3809
regulations are not an impending emergency or a national
security, so why should the Secretary be permitted not to
follow the normal NEPA process or circumvent congressional
wisdom.
The Federal public land agencies cannot, nor should not be
given unlimited ability to create regulations without
congressional oversight. Let me give you a couple of examples
of regulations run amuck by the Federal land agencies in our
county. Here in Elko County, U.S. Forest Service employees of
the Humboldt Toiyabe National Forest are protected by agency
regulations that prohibit them from being subpoenaed to testify
before a grand jury, a classic example of a Federal employee
being immune from the laws that every citizen of the United
States has to abide by.
Where logic doesn't work when it comes to Federal land
managers, just following the regulations they are in charge of,
we have Jarbidge Community Cemetery. Elko County is trying to
obtain a 1-acre addition to expand the current cemetery. The
U.S. Forest Service comes back to the county with a 20-year
lease for the 1-acre parcel.
The county is in a dilemma. We do not know whether to
rename the cemetery the Jarbidge Community Time Share Cemetery
or the Jarbidge Lazarus Cemetery. With the current boldness of
the Federal land agencies in creating new regulations, I feel
they believe they have been granted a higher power of
authority. However, I do not believe they will be able to raise
the dead every 20 years to renew their cemetery lease. This
year the BLM enacted new bonding requirements for claim holders
on public lands, without following the NEPA process correctly.
This is just putting more nails in the coffin for the mining
industry in the United States.
We have already seen a 70 percent reduction to claim
holders when the hundred dollar holding fee per claim was
enacted. By not encouraging people and companies to look for
mineral discovery here at home, we are driving the mining
industry outside our country of good paying jobs. I am here
today as a county commissioner asking you to please stop the
BLM from enacting undue regulations on the mining industry.
Current regulations are being handled by the States and current
Federal law. Please use whatever power you have to curtail the
Secretary of the Interior for not following the true NEPA
process in creating regulations.
Also, I am asking you to invoke newly enacted bonding
regulations and have the bonding regulations go through the
true NEPA process that defines the purpose and needs in a way
the law intended it to be enacted. In the State of Nevada, we
have a comprehensive, regulatory environment to protect the
citizens and the lands in our State and I thank you for the
opportunity to make this testimony.
[The statement of Mr. Hackworth may be found at end of
hearing.]
Mrs. Cubin. Thank you, Mr. Hackworth.
Next, we will call on Dr. Anthony Lesperance. You tell me
how to say your name.
STATEMENT OF ANTHONY L. LESPERANCE, ELKO COUNTY COMMISSIONER
Mr. Lesperance. You did pretty good. I can't even spell it
yet. Madam Chairman and Congressman Gibbons, I request
unanimous consent that my statement and the attached exhibits,
which are two lawsuits, be made part of the record. I consider
these lawsuits very, very important.
Mrs. Cubin. Without objection.
Mr. Lesperance. Thank you. Today, you are hearing much
about the 3809 regulations and impact that the actions of this
nature have upon the economy. Our business, Great Basin
Agriculture, has been a major player in mine and exploration
reclamation. Consequently, we are in a unique position to
engage the impacts of regulation, such as 3809.
Without belaboring the point, it is sufficient for me to
say those impacts are very significant. Perhaps it might be
more important--more appropriate to analyze why regulations
like 3809 occur to begin with and what actions of this nature
might really represent. Every single department of the Federal
Government is a bureaucracy. Bureaucracies must either grow or
stagnate.
How do bureaucrats make a bureaucracy grow? Very simple.
They either increase the mass their agency regulates or
increase the complexity with which it regulates. Either action,
if successful, increases job security, promotion, and all the
benefits associated with bureaucratic growth. That is how
regulations like 3809 come into being. The 3809 is only the tip
of the iceberg.
Growth of bureaucracy is difficult enough for those of us
who produce weather to contend with, but when the bureaucracy
becomes unethical, it presents a set of problems that at best
are almost impossible to deal with and at worse, could well
lead to total anarchy. It seems to be a given that
bureaucracies must grow. Only you in Congress can control that
with fiscal restraint, a fact which despite all the rhetoric,
Congress has failed to do, but what about the ethics of the
bureaucracy.
Let's examine the ethics of agencies we here in Nevada most
frequently deal with, the land management agencies. I will
briefly mention a few events central to ongoing litigations.
The cutting of fences or opening of gates so that legitimate
reasons can be found to trespass livestock permittees; the
mechanical covering of springs with dirt to disallow further
use of water from those springs for irrigation; the movement or
hiding of historical survey markers to confuse issues on
location; the hiding or destruction of the historical documents
absolutely necessary for settling of disputes; the physical
changing of monitoring data to make livestock grazing look
damaging; the hiring of so-called experts to present distorted
historical and factual data to support agency position.
The elimination of years of outstanding research, because
it no longer supports philosophy and, yes, even the threat of
death if one dares to oppose the government action including
the taking of personal property, and 3809 is simple. Just
compound the bureaucratic red tape until complying becomes
physically and financially impossible. Agencies that control
the public domain want full control and that includes water.
I am aware of no less than six litigations between private
individuals, political bodies, water districts and others and
the United States, concerning water rights here in Nevada. The
United States Forest Service leads a parade, close behind is
the Department of Interior, including BLM and the BIA. Control
of water in the West is control of all that occurs in the
landscape, including mining.
I will call your attention to two of these litigations. I
am providing you copies of both the suits, the first involving
the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District, requests repayment of
1,057,000 acre feet of water, including interest, for water
allegedly stolen from Pyramid Indian Reservation between 1973
and 1988.
I will not go into the details of the ramifications, but
loss of this suit would bring upon the water users of the
district, as well as the towns of Fallon and Fernley, but it is
sufficient to say the results of losing that suit will be
catastrophic. Worth more concern, however, is the case known as
the Walker River suit.
The United States is laying claim to all water of the
Walker River watershed from the crest of the Sierra Nevada
Mountains in California, to and around Walker Lake in Nevada.
Their claim includes all surface water, as well as under
groundwater within the entire basin. Theoretically, if won, the
water would be transferred to the Walker River Indian
Reservation for beneficial use. However, what seems to go
unnoticed is much of the land being claimed by the government
for the reservation, includes mountains totally capable of
being irrigated.
Further, the reservation does not want the water, although
again that doesn't seem to be very important in the eyes of the
government. The distasteful part of the Walker River case is
the fact every water user for the reservation will lose their
water. That includes 1,200 active claims, resolving certainly
what must be the single largest takings case in the history of
this country.
Finally, I would call your attention that you must never
forget that all wealth, by its very definition, ultimately
comes from the land of the associated waters. When you regulate
the ability to create wealth out of existence, it will be but a
few short years before our national economy is in shambles. Add
to that the ever-increasing takings of private property rights
and anarchy will surely follow. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Lesperance may be found at end of
hearing.]
Mrs. Cubin. Thank you very much. I21The next witness will
be Zane Miles, Deputy District Attorney for Eureka County.
STATEMENT OF ZANE MILES, DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY, EUREKA
COUNTY
Mr. Miles. Thank you, Madam Chairman, Congressman Gibbons.
I convey the regrets of Pete Chiny, our County Commissioner
Chairman, that he can't be here today. Pete is back in
Washington to testify today before another committee on another
interior matter, and you have me as a substitute.
Mrs. Cubin. We are glad to have you.
Mr. Miles. I again would ask that our written remarks be
incorporated in the record and we will excerpt them very
briefly today.
Mrs. Cubin. Without objection.
Mr. Miles. You know, perhaps the most disturbing current
trend in the Department of Interior is apparently, it is
believed, that the bureaucracy in Washington, DC knows what is
best. The bureaucrats regularly ignore local government, just
as they regularly ignore the Congress of the United States. It
is appalling to me that Secretary Babbitt can declare that
since Congress has chosen not to act on some of his pet
projects, that he will impose his beliefs anyhow by adoption of
bureaucratic rules and regulations.
I would suggest to you that Secretary Babbitt take the same
oath you did and that I did and protect and defend the
Constitution of the United States, and what he is doing is such
an egregious violation of the concept of separation of powers
that I find it appalling that Congress has not found some way
to draw rein upon such a headstrong approach.
On a State and local level, the State of Nevada and
Nevada's mining counties have an excellent record of common
sense of environmental and other controls of the mining
industry. Our enforcement is thorough, thoughtful, unbiased,
complete, effective, and accomplished with due regard for the
benefits resulting from mineral development.
If Congress, in its wisdom, is to decree that environmental
rules are to be applied to small sites, like the new 5-acre
rule, the Nevada Division of Minerals and NDEP, Department of
Environmental Protection, and the local district attorneys will
enforce those laws. We have done so in the past, and in other
contexts.
Ironically, when I got into Elko yesterday, I picked up
Saturday's edition of the Elko Free Press, and on the front
page is a rather lengthy story, headlined, ``State Fines
Newmont $23,500.'' Newmont mining is a very environmentally
responsible organization.
Our county is the largest coal-mining county in the world,
and we work closely with Newmont, Barrick, Homestake, Placer
Dome, the others, and Newmont does a good job, but they can
have problems just like anyone else; mistakes can occur. And
when the mistake did occur in this case, the State stepped in
and took administrative action. Had the administrative action
not been sufficient, the State would have come to the local
District Attorney's Office and asked us to take criminal
action, which we would have been authorized to do. That hasn't
been necessary at this point, it has occurred in others.
I will give you another example. In Lander County, the
county to the West of us, a few years ago, there was a very
small migratory bird kill where some birds got through netting
and managed to get into a cyanide-laden pool. As I recall, the
fine in that, for the death of two migratory birds, two ducks,
was $50,000, $25,000 a bird, and that matter was handled by the
State Department of Wildlife and the local District Attorney
there in Lander. There is no need that we can see to bring in
Federal regulations and Federal agents to enforce what the
State of Nevada is already doing and doing very well. If there
are two things I can leave with you today as thoughts, it would
be these.
First, I feel that Congress must take its lawmaking powers
more seriously, take back the rules, and sharply limit the
power of unelected bureaucrats to make rules and regulations
with the force of law, and, second, where Federal laws, rules
and regulations are needed, Congress should mandate that its
laws be enforced in the State and local governments if the
States and local governments are willing to do so. Direct
Federal enforcement is unnecessary unless States and counties
refuse to act. That has certainly not been the case in Nevada.
Again, thank you very much for coming to gold country to hear
what we have to say.
[The statement of Mr. Miles may be found at end of
hearing.]
Mrs. Cubin. Thank you very much, Mr. Miles, and we are glad
to have you here, even though your boss had to be some place
else. We might have even picked you, you don't know.
Next, I will ask Mayor Michael Franzoia.
Mr. Franzoia. That is exactly right, good pronouncing.
Mrs. Cubin. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL J. FRANZOIA, MAYOR, CITY OF ELKO
Mr. Franzoia. Thank you, Madam Chairman and Congressman
Gibbons for allowing me to have the opportunity to address you
today. I personally welcome you to the great city of Elko. You
are here today to listen to testimony regarding the mining
industry. As a citizen of this city for the past 17 years, I
would like to share with you the impact we have experienced for
mining. All of this I have witnessed firsthand.
Elko continues to be a growing, thriving community. In
1980, our population was less than 10,000 people. We now have a
population that approximates 19,000 and we are projected to
reach a population of nearly 31,000 in the next 15 years.
Initially, this growth represented impact challenges to our
high quality of life, but to these challenges, the community
began receiving many things we otherwise may have waited for
and perhaps would never have realized.
Growth has been good for Elko and the mining industry has
played an important role in our success. Let me give you a few
examples. To bring new families into the area, the mining
industry invested in permit quality housing developments. This
moved Elko away from being a boom town in a traditional sense,
a traditional boom town is one that grows temporarily, then
upon industry downturn, literally moves out. Permanent
investment into Elko by the mining industry ensures long-term
community sustainability.
Another one, investment by the mining industry into our
recreational facilities enables us to offer activities to
citizens and visitors of all ages. Donations in cash and
services to recreational projects include equipment, parks,
sports fields and a ski facility. Access to cultural activities
and events have improved for all of us.
Our museum is in the middle of a major expansion, the
Western Folk Life Center, which is a major attraction for
citizens and visitors alike, and the Great Basin College now
has a theater where we can enjoy a variety of entertaining
performances. All of these are benefactors of the generosity of
the mining industry.
Education has been enhanced in Elko. What was once known as
Northern Nevada Community College is now Great Basin College.
This fine institution offers education and training in a wide
variety of fields, including mining technology, and we are all
watching for this institution to become a 4-year college in the
near future.
The mining industry and its employees have been great
supporters of our college, as well as our public school system.
A new junior high is now in use in the Spring Creek area thanks
to the mining industry's major contribution to the project. We
are glad this indus-
try has impacted our community. It has been a positive impact
on our quality of life.
Any legislation regulations that harm mining is certainly
not in the best interest of this community and any impact
should be considered on the impact that it has with our
community. I would like to thank you for providing me the time
to share this excitement I feel about the city of Elko and our
growth and the things we have to celebrate in our community,
much as a result of our mining industry neighbors. Thank you
again.
Mrs. Cubin. Thank you, Mayor.
Our next witness will be Assemblyman John Carpenter, but
before he testifies, I would like to let everyone know that
Senator D. Rhoads was invited to this hearing to testify as
well, but he did have a prior commitment and he is submitting
his testimony for the record. I understand he is on a cattle
call and coming from Wyoming, I know how important that is.
Assemblyman Carpenter.
STATEMENT OF JOHN CARPENTER, ASSEMBLYMAN, NEVADA LEGISLATURE
Mr. Carpenter. Thank you, Madam Chairman and Congressman
Jim Gibbons, my fellow assemblyman a few years back. I would
like to put a little different spin on the situation of mine
dewatering Dr. Myers told you about. I think that our big
problem with mine dewatering is going to come when the mines
want to quit dewatering. At that time, there are going to be
many agricultural interests that have come to depend upon the
mine dewatering and they are not going to like to see those
pumps shut off.
The great wetlands that have been created by mine
dewatering, people are not going to want to see them dry up,
but I do think one thing will happen and that is Nevada is
going to have some of the best fishing holes in the world.
In regard to the Nevada legislature's concern about the
hardrock mining regulations, their changes, after joint
hearings, the legislature adopted Assembly Joint Resolution
Number 7, which expresses outrage over the procedures followed
by the United States Bureau of Land Management in adopting the
new rules. The resolution outlines procedural issues and urges
the Secretary of the Interior to suspend or withdraw the rules.
In the packet that has been handed to you is an actual copy
of the resolution. It goes on to state many of the problems
that have been expressed here today. I think that you can read
the resolution and see for yourself that the legislature of the
State of Nevada was very concerned about this kind of
rulemaking. I would like to remind you that the Nevada
legislature that passed this resolution comes from the most
urban State in the Nation. You would not think that with our
open spaces that we would be the most urban State in the
Nation, but with the majority of the population in Las Vegas
and Reno, that is the situation. So I think it goes to show
that the urban people are concerned about rural Nevada, and so
that when people from Washington, the bureaucrats, start taking
pot shots at us, everybody gets up in arms.
As you are aware, the rule was not withdrawn and it took
effect on March 31, 1997. Not having been successful in getting
the rule modified, the legislature recognized the need to
assist miners in complying with its requirements. The Senate
bill 440 was enacted. The measure expands Nevada's existing
program through which mining operations and exploration
projects can obtain performance bonds to ensure reclamation of
their mine sites.
Under existing law, operations that disturb 5 acres of land
or more in a calendar year are eligible to request a bond
through the State bond pool. Senate bill 440 expands the
eligibility to include operations that disturb less than 5
acres per year as required by the Federal regulations, as well
as projects of any size that must post a reclamation bond
pursuant to county requirements.
I believe that the new bonding regulations are just a
continuation of Secretary Babbitt's war on the West. In regard
to mining, without small miners on the ground doing
prospecting, much of our large mines would not exist. I think
that if Secretary Babbitt feels that if we could shut off this
exploration as Chairman Hackworth said, we will drive another
nail in the coffin of the miners. These regulations are having
a very adverse effect on our livestock industry here.
Utilization standards on riparian areas are driving our
ranchers off the land, there is no question about it.
Mrs. Cubin. Feel free to give your entire testimony if you
want to.
Mr. Carpenter. It is too long, I don't want to do that. I
would just like to say, though, that Congress must exercise
veto power over agency regulations. It seems no one can control
the bureaucracies, even cutting the budgets does not seem to
help. And so the agencies are forced to comply with laws. No
citizen is safe from the tentacles of unnecessary regulation.
In Nevada, we now have--the legislature has the authority
to veto any agency regulations. As Jim will remember, the
legislature passed a statute to give us that authority. The
Governor did not like that and he filed suit, and the Supreme
Court ruled that the legislature did not have oversight of
agency regulations so that was the last time we had a
constitutional resolution that gave the legislature veto power
over the regulations that the bureaucracy was trying to
propose. So I think that it is necessary that the Federal
Government, the Congress, also gets that authority back. Thank
you very much for being here and listening to us.
[The statement of Mr. Carpenter may be found at end of
hearing.]
Mrs. Cubin. Thank you very much for being here. Questions,
Mr. Gibbons.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Perhaps one. John
Carpenter, very early on, since he and I shared a great deal of
our life together in a State legislature, especially on
national resources. Do you feel that by the resolution that the
State of Nevada has, AJR Number 7 here, that there was a
concern by the State legislature that new bonding regulations
were not needed; that the laws and provisions of the State with
regard to the protection of the environment, the water quality,
air quality, et cetera, were adequately covered by existing
laws, regulations, and was that the reason why you decided to
pass this resolution, in light of the changes of the proposed
changes in 3809?
Mr. Carpenter. Thank you, Jim. I don't think there is any
question but that the regulations that Nevada has in place are
ade-
quate. They are a model for, as we heard here today, for the
industry, not only in the United States, but throughout the
world. And we really didn't see any reason to have these
changes.
For instance, one of those changes is that you have to have
an outside consultant come in and look at your reclamation
projects. That doesn't make any sense at all. That is just like
saying that the people that you--people you choose for your
staff, that they ought to have somebody looking over their
shoulder all the time. It is absurd to do those kinds of things
and Nevada is a leader. I think that, Jim, you were in the
legislature with myself when we promulgated the statutes, and
they are very thorough. They provide for more than adequate
protection for the environment, and I believe that the
legislature felt that, you know, we are doing our job and we
just don't need all that direction from Secretary Babbitt.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you. Zane, in your job as the Assistant
District Attorney, do you feel that your office, as well as the
State of Nevada, are adequately enforcing the laws with regard
to environmental issues and reclamation as permitted through
State requirements.
Mr. Miles. We enforce the law so that we agree with them or
not, and often we don't. Eureka County is in the fortunate
situation, since we do have the largest gold production county
in the world, we have the resources for local government to do
its job, and we are certainly capable of doing whatever
enforcement is necessary. I have no qualms at all about--and
neither does my boss, about filing a criminal action, if, in
fact, the circumstances would justify it.
On the other hand, we have what is called prosecutorial
discretion, and in its best sense, that means that we can look
at a situation and determine whether the offense is accidental,
deliberate or whatever, and that happens throughout the State.
This Newmont fine, administrative fine, is a perfect example.
The fine was reduced slightly because Newmont cooperated and
bent over backward to cooperate with the State Department of
environmental protection, and consequently, the NDEP never came
to us for any sort of a criminal prosecution, and none is
needed. If one were needed, yes, we would do it, we certainly
would.
Mr. Gibbons. OK. Mike, let me turn to some of the comments
that you made with regard to infrastructure, development, and
support for the mining industry toward the city of Elko and its
needs, assuming that we understand that Elko has been, for a
long time, the sort of bedroom community for many of the mine
workers who work in Eureka County or outside of the area.
Do you feel that with your position as Mayor, that you will
experience a less or degraded interest by the mining companies
in helping with infrastructure needs in future development if
3809 regulations impose new and more burdensome costs upon the
mining companies?
Mr. Franzoia. Oh, yes, I would definitely say that would be
a detriment to the city. Right now we get a lot of support on
recreational facilities. Like I said, anything involving new,
but if there is a downturn on the requirements, obviously it is
going to be a cost factor for the mines, with less funding
sources available for those improvements to the city and, yes,
I think we would suffer greatly in a lot of areas, not only in
city infrastructures, but support that the mines have with
other organizations in the community, such as soccer, little
league and those kinds of functions, which we have a great
situation here where we have a lot of volunteers that are out
there and the same token would be--on a nonfinancial basis,
would be the support of the employees in those same activities
as volunteering goes.
A lot of these things that happen in our community make it
the way it is, and we support, even with the Western Folk Life,
putting that on, our results of the activities and people
getting involved, donating their time, aside from donating
money from the mines, so we have a lot of mining employees that
participate in these things and it is crucial, and any
downgrade to the situation we have, being that we are the
community for the mines and we are impacted greatly more than
any other city on the corridor, at least in the county, it is a
detriment to us, no question about it.
Mr. Gibbons. Let me ask a followup question. Do you notice
the deterioration in the quality of life, whether it is air
quality, particulate matter in the air or something because of
the current operations of mines in and around the Elko
community?
Mr. Franzoia. Not at all. The only thing I see that is a
detriment is increased traffic, but we work on that. As long as
the community grows either 4 percent a year or 2 percent a
year, eventually you are going to deal with additional traffic
problems, but actually I have a tendency to pride myself when I
travel out of town to tell everybody how good Elko is and how
blue the skies are and we may have 3 or 4 days a year with fog,
and it usually breaks up by 10 in the morning. Otherwise, the
only particulate matter we see coming through is when the winds
blow up and we get dust all the way from Lovelock that is
airborne for hundreds and hundreds of miles, so otherwise we
don't see at all an impact from air quality or standards of
life in the city.
Mr. Gibbons. Wasn't, 1994, Elko named one of the most
desirable communities to live in in the United States?
Mr. Franzoia. Nineteen ninety four, Elko was considered one
of the best small towns in America, the quality of life being a
major focus and also the economic values of the community and
cultural activities we have in the community, all played a part
in that recognition.
Mr. Gibbons. Let me turn my attention over to Royce
Hackworth, who talked earlier about mining industry and 3809
regulations. Do you feel, in your position as a county
commissioner, that the citizens of Nevada, in general, will see
a marked improvement in the quality of their life, on a county-
wide basis with a major overhaul of the 3809 regulations
pertaining to mining.
Mr. Hackworth. I don't see where you would see a major
improvement, but what we see is currently the rules and the
regulations that are out there that the mining district has to
follow seem adequate. There may be some areas they want to look
at, but at the same time, a major overhaul of it, I don't see
it as a benefit to the assistance of Elko. What I see is, and
we are seen in the industry as mining companies today that have
properties all on pri-
vate land taking 28 months just to get a permit through, to go
through all the permitting agencies they have to.
You add the tier of the Federal Government on top of it,
and it extends that period of time. Some of the permitting goes
in conjunction, but the issue of it is the major overhaul that
comes in. It delays the potential of that mine opening, and
they will look at the economic impacts it has for the
regulation to become so severe. It will change the economics of
that mine working.
But the other thing that really changes a lot and I don't
think a lot of people recognize this is if those regulations
become very severe or unduly in their implementation, what it
does is it affects the future of anybody living in Elko County.
We have big mines today that could show production going on
until the year 2030, but at the same time, who is looking for
the next mine off of their main site that they have right
today. The grass roots exploration is a thing that even in my
own business, and Mr. Gustin stated, were indicator species for
the industry. And I am going to tell you, it is off, this year
we are at 50 percent of where we were approximately 7 years
ago. And this is where I get really concerned.
It is not--the Barrick and Newmont have good land
positions, are finding things on their own property, but who is
looking for the next one, and everybody says, oh, you will
never find a Barrick, Newmont. I think Placer Dome is an
example of what they have done on that trend and that is real
close to their own block right at this point in time, but
somebody looking outside of those trend areas, those are the
things we are seeing happen, those are the areas I have a
concern with is because nobody is looking, as they did 10 years
ago, for the next one.
Mr. Gibbons. So you see with the new changes, there will be
a dramatic downturn in the exploration of new mines, based on
the burden of proposed changes to the 3809 regulations, so that
exploration will not be out there to the degree where we will
find major bodies that will be both economically advantageous
to not only the State of Nevada and the people of Elko, but the
United States as well.
Mr. Hackworth. It reduces that potential dramatically is
what it does.
Mr. Gibbons. Dr. Lesperance, you talked in some detail
about some of the occurrences that took place, that you have
great concern with over the actions of some of the Federal
agents. Have you any personal knowledge of any of these
activities, like the destruction or covering of springs, the
destruction or covering of survey monuments, et cetera, that
you brought up.
Mr. Lesperance. Yes, I am somewhat knowledgeable about
surface water rights. I am somewhat knowledgeable about the
history of Nevada, having worked with land issues for over 40
years now. Consequently, I am frequently used as an expert
witness in land issues. In particular, during the last, you
know, about the last 5 years, I have been intimately involved
in two major takings cases in central Nevada against the Forest
Service and a case here in Elko County in which the county was
involved in the Forest Service, in a lawsuit, and still is. And
most of what I referred to come directly out of those
litigations.
All three are still in process, although one is closely
being settled out of court, with basically the cave-in by the
Forest Service, so one, I think, we are going to do pretty good
in. But all of those things I mentioned come directly from the
various litigations. They were also the reason, I feel, it was
absolutely necessary that this county enact a grand jury and
they did call for that grand jury in 1994 to look more
thoroughly into these matters of some of the problems between
private industry, even county government, State agencies, and
the Federal Government, and that is why I called for that. As
you will recall, we had a successful petition, and somewhat
over a year ago, we did enact a grand jury.
Mr. Gibbons. Some of your information came directly from
employees in the Federal Government who were witness to this
themselves?
Mr. Lesperance. No, we don't get too much information from
the Federal Government. They refuse to participate in the grand
jury proceedings. Obviously, they do participate in the
lawsuits. Most of my knowledge has come from investigative
efforts that have resulted in uncovering of the various facts
and are part of the litigation at this point in time.
Mr. Gibbons. Perhaps, Doctor, I should also ask you what
your Ph.D. is in.
Mr. Lesperance. Various sciences, biochemistry, nutrition
and ecology.
Mr. Gibbons. Now, let me ask the final question here and I
will turn it back over to the Chairman. Have you been
financially impacted by 3809 regulations since their inception?
Mr. Lesperance. From a practical standpoint, no, it has had
very little impact upon us because we are basically out of the
reclamation business at this point in time. Our firm was, I am
quite sure, would have been considered in the late 1980's,
early 1990's, to be basically the reclamation leader. From the
practical standpoint, we were involved in reclamation projects
throughout the West, final reclamation, primarily writing of
reclamation plans and actual final reclamation, which includes
the seating process, so forth and so on.
Because of my involvement in these lawsuits and as well as
my involvement in the grand jury, there has been significant
pressures brought to bear on our firm and at this point in time
we are essentially out of the reclamation business. From a
practical standpoint, therefore, 3809 has not got much impact
on me because our businesses are nonexistent. I am quite sure
it would have if we were still at the level of reclamation as
we were 5 years ago. It would have a significant impact.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you.
Mrs. Cubin. Thank you. I don't know exactly who to ask this
question of so I think I will start with you, Assemblyman
Carpenter. You have identified one of the biggest problems that
we have at the Federal level and you indicated you also have at
the State level and that is that due to separation of powers,
we don't have the ability to do very much about regulations
that are passed by the executive branch. And I have been trying
to figure out a way that we could do this and I have had
several ideas and I would like your opinion on this one. What
would you think about every Fed-
eral law that was passed, and the regulations that accompany
it, being sunsetted after 10, 15, 20 years. I don't know the
amount of time, but if we--well, I am not going to try to sell
you on it. You just give me your impression on it. Would you
think that would be workable?
Mr. Carpenter. Well, thank you, Madam Chairman. I would
like to think it would be workable. I would think, though, that
the--if you could sunset them every few years, why couldn't you
review them and if they were not following the intent of
Congress, then amend that original law to take care of the
situation that you saw that had placed too much of a burden.
It would seem to me that, you know, there are a few things
that make sense, even coming out of Congress and the State
legislature. Most people don't want to believe that, but
sometimes they do, that we probably wouldn't want to get rid
of, but I sure think you ought to be able to review them, and
if the agencies are going counter to the thoughts of Congress,
then you should be able to change that statute.
Mrs. Cubin. Well, I would suggest that sunsetting them
would have that exact effect, because if the law no longer
applied, then it would be sunsetted. If it did, but needed
changes, those adjustments could be made, and if it didn't,
then you would just reenact the same thing, but that would not
put us always on the defensive.
At that point, we would have a chance to have our--you
know, to be at the table and to update even those laws. I know
that that is sort of a radical-sounding idea, but I think,
really, when it comes right down to it, that will work better
than trying to figure out how we can have oversight or how we
can really have much affect on regulatory reform.
As you probably know, the Congress passed a law that said
that within 60 days after a rule was made final, that they
could overturn it with a two-thirds vote in each House. Well,
essentially, especially with the Congress that is as
politically divided as we are today. That is essentially like
having no oversight at all. So that is a problem and that
brings me back to Mr. Miles.
Mr. Miles, certainly I couldn't agree with you more. You
talked about the separation of powers. And I am going to make a
statement which probably comes as a big surprise because I have
been doing more talking than you have, and then I would like
you to comment on this.
I agree with you that the Congress has given up its
responsibility to the executive branch, and I also agree with
you that it is appalling that Congress hasn't been able to
reign in this administration, but I would suggest that this is
a lawless administration, and that very separation of powers
that you were talking about, Mr. Babbitt, having said, since
the Congress won't pass the mining law, I will, and he has done
that on many things. It is that very separation of powers that
if we uphold our constitutionally sworn obligation, we can't
tread on that either.
Really, the only vehicle the Congress has is asking for a
special prosecutor from the Attorney General. In this case, we
have a lawless administration, who is using the Justice
Department to protect them from public scrutiny, to protect
them and refusing to, in certain circumstances that are not in
the purview of this Committee, but refusing to even appoint a
special prosecutor. What do you recommend we do?
Mr. Miles. I think the problem, Madam Chairman, goes to the
very basis of legislation enacted by the Congress. I spend
about half of my life struggling through the Code of Federal
Regulations, and when I do that, each time I read a
bureaucratic rule of regulation, I go back and I try to look at
the law from which that regulation is supposed to have been
adopted, and the authority that is cited by the bureaucrats and
in many, many cases, I can't find in the law.
What happens is that Congress naturally, because that is
how the system is supposed to work, enacts legislation in broad
strokes, and in order to get through the political process in
Congress, the strokes are made even broader as the various
sides make their input, and pretty soon you end up with a
statute which is so broad that it can be interpreted to mean
almost anything that a bureaucrat wants it to mean and that is
exactly what is happening to us.
And I think the only way that we are ever going to rein
this in and get back to the division of powers that the
Founders envisioned is for Congress to be more specific in its
legislation, and perhaps even to the point of Congress, when it
enacts a law, adding a clause to the effect that this law shall
not be interpreted as, and listing the things that you might
fear that the bureaucrats might do that you definitely want to
say that they shouldn't do.
Mrs. Cubin. I think that is good advice. And, also, I want
to support your statement about your research, having looked
into how they get rules and regulations, based on the statutes
and you wonder where they ever came from. On the law
enforcement regulations that the BLM proposed and subsequently
withdrew, our investigations indicated that not only did they
base it on really obscure things in the statute, but then they
based some of those authorities on regulations that they
themselves had passed.
In the case of the bonding requirements, this Subcommittee
asked for documents as to how that--they said that they had
taken public input and we wanted to know every detail about how
they actually arrived at that final rule, so we asked for
documents, and they refused to provide them. The Chairman
finally had to subpoena them, but in their refusal, basically,
they said that they would give us the documents they wanted us
to see so that they would have oversight of what documents we
would see to have oversight of them. Isn't that them having
oversight of themselves?
Mr. Miles. That is pretty circular reasoning, isn't it?
Mrs. Cubin. Well, I have to move on. Mr. Lesperance, you
sound like my husband. Sometimes people think he is a little
bit radical, but I am going to tell you what. I think that you
are exactly right where it is.
While I don't condone, and I doubt that you do, people
taking the law into their own hands, as is happening around the
Western States with the militias and so on, when we look at
Waco and Ruby Ridge, we have to see how desperate people are
and how far the Government has pushed on them to get them to be
that desperate. What kind of a government has such desperation
when people only want the rights that they have been
guaranteed? What reception do you get around when you talk
about the things that you discussed here today and submitted in
your written testimony?
Mr. Lesperance. Madam Chairman, I would like to call your
attention to my statement and the attached lawsuits. There are
two attached lawsuits. The first is the Truckee-Carson lawsuit
and the second, which is about one-third of the way through the
total document, is called United States District Court for the
District of Nevada, United States of America, and Walker River
Paiute Tribe versus Walker River Irrigation District, and if
you will look on page 2 of that document, and for the next
eight pages, you will see a list of names. I hope you see that.
Mrs. Cubin. I noticed that last night.
Mr. Lesperance. There are 1,200 plus names in there and the
list is not complete. I happen to have spent a number of years
in the area and I know many of the people in both California
and Nevada, and I have talked with some of these people very
recently. These are honest people. These are people that have
been born on these ranches, third, fourth, fifth and even
sixth-generation people, and they are not going to leave real
easy. But when you take the water away from those people, if
they lose this suit, which is inconceivable to me, but if you
do take the water away from those people, I cannot predict what
they will do.
I know them, I know how they live, I know how they got to
where they are at today, and they are not going to go down real
easy. But it is interesting, I will throw another little
wrinkle in here so you have a better understanding of how
devious the bureaucracy is. I do not believe that the Justice
Department and/or the Department of Interior really believes
they can win this lawsuit, this fight, with the effort they are
putting into it.
Coincidentally, last week, the Bureau of Land Management
started a program in the Eureka Walker River offering to buy
everybody's water rights. Now, that is after they have been
subjected to this lawsuit, have already had to come up with
their legal counsel, which is costing millions of dollars, and
now the BLM is saying, well, you know, we will buy your water
rights. That is a corrupt government, that is a corrupt
bureaucracy and that is what has to be straightened out if this
country is going to survive.
Mrs. Cubin. It has been reported that Bruce Babbitt has
stated, and I don't recall the convention, but that all of the
water within the borders of the United States of America should
belong to the Government of the United States of America.
Mr. Lesperance. He has made that statement. We here in
Nevada still operate under the State and perhaps we are
mistaken, feeling we still own the water.
Mrs. Cubin. We do.
Mr. Lesperance. I am quite sure constitutionally, that is
correct. But the other factor that you really need to
understand is even though the Department of Interior may
initiate a lawsuit, what happens next, the Department of
Justice steps in. I have had the privilege of looking at eight
Federal lawyers at one time. How possibly can anybody in this
State survive an onslaught of that nature? We don't have the
money. Nobody has that kind of money. The Department of Justice
has as much money as they want.
Mrs. Cubin. And as much time as you can pay them while you
are paying your own attorney at the same time.
Mr. Lesperance. That is correct. It becomes very, very
frustrating.
Mrs. Cubin. Back to Assemblyman Carpenter. You talked about
the constitutional resolution that was passed, I think you said
it was passed by the legislature. What is the procedure on
that? In Wyoming it has to be passed by two-thirds of the House
and Senate and then in the next general election it has to be
put on the ballot. What is the procedure in Nevada and where is
that resolution?
Mr. Carpenter. Thank you, Madam Chairman. The procedure in
Nevada is it passes the legislature twice. It does not have to
be two-thirds majority, just a simple majority passes the
legislature twice and then it is put on the ballot, and the
people vote on it. And as far as this constitutional amendment
that I was talking about that gives the legislature the
oversight or veto power over agency rulemaking, it did pass the
people, was passed by the people in the last general election,
and so now the State legislature does have that oversight
power.
Mrs. Cubin. And more States should do exactly what Nevada
has done, I think. After the resolution you passed about the
bonding regulations, did you hear from the Secretary or did you
hear from any representatives of the Department of Interior?
Mr. Carpenter. The only thing we heard was they were not
going to change it, and they confided in our committee chairman
that they were not going to change these regulations, and so
that was the extent of their response, that, you know, so what,
try to change them when you really don't have the authority to
do it.
Mrs. Cubin. In your face.
Mr. Carpenter. That is right. And I think, though, that
what these hearings bring out, in my mind, is that a number of
years ago, we didn't think that the government was our enemy.
We thought that the government was going to do right for us,
that they were going to protect our properties and our right to
make a living; that they really weren't our enemies. But we
have seen, through the last number of years that there are
other people out there that want to take our way of life away
from us, for what reason, I don't know. But I think that we are
finally, hopefully getting the message to the politicians who
have it in their power to change these things, and I think with
yourself and Congressman Gibbons and other people that we are
finally making some headway and we are going to see, I hope in
the next 15 years, a big rollback of what has happened in the
last number of years.
Mrs. Cubin. I can tell you firsthand that I have seen that
in the Congress, and I know that it is hard, when the only news
from Washington you get is the Eastern liberal media. A lot of
times people out here in the country don't even know what we
are talking about and the debates we are having and there are
more than just Representative Gibbons and I that care about
this and care about it very, very deeply and it is all of our
obligation. We can't stop and we can't shut up. We have to keep
talking about it and bringing this out into the light of day so
that everyone can see it because I am going to tell you, people
in the East do not believe it. They don't believe it when we
tell them these things happen. We have to prove it to them over
and over. But that is why we are here and that is what we need
to do.
You were right when you said, I think you were the one that
said that even cutting the money at the Federal level doesn't
work, and that is right. It doesn't work because we did that.
We did that in the 104th Congress and you know what happened,
we can't--well, we appropriated money to the BLM, Park Service,
Forest Service, on and on and on, and where we said that they
should spend money, they didn't. They spent it where they
wanted to spend it. They moved it to programs that we didn't
want to fund. Again, we are back to this lawless
administration, when you have an administration that doesn't
care about the law, and I am convinced the Clinton
Administration, through and through, doesn't care about the
law. Then they just spend the money where they want and you
know what they did, they took money away from the services.
I am not certain about this, but like in permitting, and in
areas that directly hurt our constituency, they even targeted
at us, but nonetheless, we have to keep up the good fight. I
had one last thing.
Mayor, this isn't a question, but I wanted to congratulate
you on the activities that are going on in Elko. It was an all-
American city or one of the best small towns to live in.
Mr. Franzoia. It was the best small town in America. It was
based on a population criteria, so we have outgrown that now. I
think it was under 17,000 or 15,000, population.
Mrs. Cubin. Wyoming and Nevada have an awful lot in common.
We have a city, Lander, Wyoming, that has been awarded one of
the most livable cities in the country as well, and Assemblyman
Carpenter said, which shocked me, Nevada is the most urban
State in the Union. Wyoming is the most rural. We don't have
one single metropolitan area in Wyoming, I am proud to say.
Back to the mayor, your cowboy poetry week is my favorite
thing. I was not able to come for that, but Baxter Black is one
of my favorite guys and if you all had time I could recite some
cowboy poetry for you, but we have to check out of the hotel,
so congratulations on what you do. Thank you for your
testimony.
We are going to take a 10-minute break. We need to check
out of our rooms and get packed up so we can leave so you can
all go have a cup of coffee or whatever and we will reconvene
in, let's make it 15 minutes.
[Recess.]
Mrs. Cubin. The Subcommittee will please come to order. I
would like to ask that the fourth and final panel come forward.
Mr. Leo Drozdoff, Jack Blackwell and Jean Rivers-Council. Mr.
Drozdoff--is that it?
Mr. Drozdoff. Perfect.
Mrs. Cubin. I am getting better--is a Bureau Chief of
Mining, Regulation and Reclamation for the Nevada Division of
Environmental Protection. And we will ask him to lead off with
the testimony.
STATEMENT OF LEO DROZDOFF, BUREAU CHIEF, MINING REGULATION &
RECLAMATION, NEVADA DIVISION OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION,
NEVADA DEPARTMENT OF CONSERVATION AND NATURAL RESOURCES
Mr. Drozdoff. OK. Thank you very much. We have provided
written testimony and what I would like to do in the interest
of time, and to also be able to talk about some things that may
have been raised in previous testimony, is just briefly
summarize the written remarks, and go on from there.
One point I did want to make at the outset is the State of
Nevada, Division of Environmental Protection, is a fully
delegated State; that is, we have delegation agreements from
the EPA on clean water, clean air, across the board. And
others, we do a very good job. We have a very good relationship
with EPA in administering those programs. We also administer
programs pursuant to State law, as Representative Gibbons is
aware and as Assemblyman Carpenter is aware.
We have very comprehensive State laws in the areas of
groundwater protection, and in reclamation, that are not--do
not replicate any Federal activity, but are purely State laws,
and those laws then were used by agencies to craft what we
consider to be very well-thought-out regulations, and the
comment has been made a couple times today that Nevada is the
leader in groundwater protection and reclamation and we are
proud of that, as being part of that.
I also wanted to talk a little bit about our existing
relationship with some of the Federal land management agencies
that I am sitting here with today. Because of all of the
negative activities that perhaps have gone on recently with the
Bureau of Land Management, that sort of casts a dark light on
what has been and still is what I consider to be a good
relationship with the Federal land management agencies in the
State of Nevada, both the State office and the district offices
in Nevada, as well as the U.S. Forest Service.
We have lots of things that we work on, it is not a perfect
system. You have heard some of the testimony today that there
are areas that need to be improved, and we continue to work on
that, but the fact is, the programs are in place, the
communication is in place to get that done. We have good
memorandums of agreement with both the BLM and with the Forest
Service. We continually work to improve in those areas. We have
worked on various initiatives with the BLM and the Forest
Service in many areas, including a revegetation issue that,
again, is timely.
We don't always agree, but we do communicate and I think
the final product, when it is put together, is a good product.
We work well with environmental groups and with industry, and
just to show the States level of interest in that regard, we,
we, being the State, actually will fund a BLM employee to act
as a liaison. This is money that is paid to the State, which we
then contract with the BLM, so that we can further improve
communications in the areas of long-range issues as well as
day-to-day activities as they come up, and, again, that is a
concept that has been embraced by environmental groups and by
industry.
And while all those are good things, I did want to quickly
touch on two areas we do have some concerns with. You have
heard lots of new testimony on the bonding rule and you would
agree with a fair amount of that. We think the manner in which
the bonding rule was passed was inappropriate and we believe
some of the provisions contained therein were not well-
conceived. Now, it must be said that the State of Nevada
supports bonding on all public lands, but what we don't agree
with is some of the areas, such as third-party engineering
reviews and this water quality criteria.
Again, Nevada is a fully delegated State and has its own
State programs for groundwater protection and we don't believe
that is an appropriate area and we don't believe it was a well-
conceived rule. And last, I wanted to touch on the overall 3809
regulation review. We have taken that matter very seriously.
You have touched on that.
Our Governor has written a letter to the BLM, being quite
candid on Nevada's concerns about that 3809 process. That is
included in my testimony, and I think it speaks well to the
issues that the NDEP and the Department of Minerals, as well as
the administrative branch of government in Nevada believes. Now
with that, I guess my time is up and I will close. I did want
to touch on some things that were raised in testimony. If you
would like me to wait, I can do that or I can briefly touch on
some of them.
Mrs. Cubin. Go ahead.
Mr. Drozdoff. There was a great deal of talk, some talk, I
suppose, on water quantity, and now we are the water quality
folks at NDEP. The State engineer and the Division of Water
Resources are the water quantity folks. I did have the
opportunity to briefly speak with the State engineer, who was
not able to attend, but did want me to mention a couple issues.
He wanted me to note in the Humboldt River Basin, 90
percent of the water discharged is either put back into the
ground, beneficially used in the basin or substituted for other
uses in the basins. One such notable example would be in the
case of Lone Tree Mine; a pipeline was built to supply water to
a power company and that enabled water, then, not to be pumped
to supply the power company. He also wanted me to offer to
provide his testimony, if you felt it was appropriate. He can
do that, or if there were specific questions we can relate to
him, I would be glad to do that for him.
I wanted to touch briefly, there was some mention about
Jerritt Canyon and a Clean Water Act issue and I must say that
I am not aware of a Clean Water Act issue at Jerritt Canyon. I
will say this. We do periodically routinely meet with all
members that--all members of the community. We also meet with
various environmental groups routinely, and that issue has--a
lot of issues have been raised, but that issue in terms of a
Clean Water Act violation have not been raised yet. That is
something that we will look into.
We do have some groundwater issues out at Jerritt Canyon
that again we are managing. We have a remediation activity, and
that is, again, what we consider to be a groundwater issue, and
we are dealing with it. And I would like to just stress this
point about Nevada's regulations. The good State regulations,
coupled with good enforcement of Federal regulations has
really, in our opinion, resulted in some of the tightest Clean
Water Act regulations that exist. We incorporate all Federal
water quality standards, where appropriate, and we incorporate
State standards for specific streams when they are necessary,
and our permits are reflective of that, our permits--our
operating permits that we issue can contain these same
limitations, so I think they are very tight, but we would like
to believe they are well-run, well-administered and we take
pride in that. So with that, I will close.
[The statement of Mr. Drozdoff may be found at end of
hearing.]
Mrs. Cubin. Thank you very much. Next, I will call on Jack
Blackwell, the Deputy Regional Forester, Intermountain Region,
U.S. Forest Service. Mr. Blackwell.
STATEMENT OF JACK BLACKWELL, DEPUTY REGIONAL FORESTER,
INTERMOUNTAIN REGION, U.S. FOREST SERVICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
AGRICULTURE
Mr. Blackwell. Madam Chairman, Congressman Gibbons, my name
is Jack Blackwell. I am Deputy Regional Forester for the
Intermountain Region of the Forest Service. I am accompanied by
Larry Gadt, the Forest Service National Director of Minerals. A
summary of our statement is as follows.
For over 125 years, the mining industry has explored and
developed locatable minerals underlying Federal lands, under
provisions of the 1872 mining law. That mining law, and
legislation since 1872, make public land available for mineral
development. Under Forest Service regulations, operators are
required to reclaim land to prevent or control damage to the
environment so that existing problems with abandoned mines are
not compounded. Before operations commenced, the Forest
Service, in conjunction with operators, must establish and
document in the plan of operations the reclamation standards
for each site-specific activity.
When we receive a mining proposal, it is analyzed to
determine if a plan of operations is necessary. If one is
necessary, the plan is reviewed to determine if it contains the
required information and what level of environmental analysis
is needed. Within 30 days of receipt of a plan of operations,
the district ranger informs the operator of the status of the
plan. Once the plan is completed and a bond has been submitted
for reclamation, the plan is approved. The Forest Service
strives to process mining operation applications quickly, to
accommodate the company schedule. For example, here in Elko
County, the Jerritt Canyon mine expansion and the Dash project
were permitted in less than 16 months.
Field units with the heaviest hardrock mining workloads
have also been encouraging a regulatory review and update for a
number of other issues. We are examining possible modification
of the surface use regulations and have included this effort in
the fiscal 1997 plan of work and that will be extended into
fiscal 1998. The Forest Service is examining changes to address
shortcomings in the areas of occupancy, notices of intent,
plans of operation, reclamation, and bonding. This effort is
being coordinated with the BLM, review of its surface
management regulations. The joint agency goal is to have
regulations as consistent as possible.
In managing the surface resource effects of operations,
much work remains to remediate the effects of historical
operations which have been abandoned. The Forest Service is
working with other agencies to identify and correct these
problems. That completes the summary of our statement and we
would be glad to answer any questions.
[The statement of Mr. Blackwell may be found at end of
hearing.]
Mrs. Cubin. Thank you very much. Next, we will call on Jean
Rivers-Council, Associate State Director of the Nevada State
Office of the Bureau of Land Management.
STATEMENT OF JEAN RIVERS-COUNCIL, ASSOCIATE STATE DIRECTOR,
NEVADA STATE OFFICE, BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT
OF THE INTERIOR
Ms. Rivers-Council. Madam Chairwoman, Congressman Gibbons,
I appreciate the opportunity to appear here today to discuss
the status of permitting hardrock mining operations on the
public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The BLM
regulates these operations pursuant to the general mining laws
of the United States and the Federal Land Policy and Management
Act. I provided the Subcommittee with copies of my full
statement.
In the interest of time, I will deliver a summary
statement. It is important to note that minerals production is
only one of many resource issues for the BLM in Nevada. About
67 percent of the total land in Nevada is managed by the BLM.
In addition, BLM Nevada has recorded over 756,000 mining
claims, of which 135,000 are still active. More than half of
all new claims filed annually are recorded in Nevada. About 67
percent of gold production in the Nation is from Nevada. That
amounts to over 7 million ounces per year.
To meet the needs of industry, BLM and other regulatory
agencies have worked intensively to reduce the time required to
process notices and plans of operations. In the 1980's, BLM
recognized the pace of processing these plans was unacceptable.
We addressed our process and improved it. In the last 2 years,
the BLM has developed more consistent and predictable technical
guidelines. Even with the more complex plans of operation
today, we have decreased review time. The basic Federal
regulations under which we operate are found in 43 CFR 3800.
One provision of these regulations relates to smaller
exploration and mining operations on public lands. These are
operations with cumulative surface disturbance of 5 acres or
less. These operators are required to notify the BLM at least
15 calendar days prior to commencing operations. Operators that
exceed 5 acres on BLM public land must have a plan of operation
analyzed and approved by the BLM.
When the BLM processes exploration and mine plans and
notices of operations, it must follow all of the numerous
Federal laws. In recent years, Nevada production has escalated
from about a half million ounces of gold per year in 1981 to
over 7 million ounces in 1997. New production activity has
shifted away from mining and shallow pits. The ores produced
today are more expensive and challenging to process than those
mined in the past. In many of the valleys of Nevada, the ore
lies below the water table. To keep today's mines dry, water
must be pumped at rates exceeding 30 to 50 gallons per minute.
This agency works hard to be a good neighbor. One way we do
that is to work with the State and the Mineral Exploration and
Mine Permitting Program. The BLM has reached major agree-
ments with the State of Nevada, including two with the Nevada
Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. The first
involved development of a program with the Department's
Division of Environmental Protection for review of exploration
and mining plans, reclamation bonding, inspections and
reclamation requirements. Today, there is a joint review
process in Nevada.
Under the second agreement, the BLM and the Nevada Division
of Wildlife are cooperating in developing wildlife protection
requirements, especially for tailings ponds and other mine
ponds which contain chemicals used in mining operations. The
BLM also works closely with the Nevada Division of Minerals
regarding remediation of abandoned mine hazards.
Mining has occurred in Nevada for more than 140 years.
During that time, many prospectors and miners abandoned sites
without cleaning them up. The State is helping us with this
problem. Last year more than 100 hazardous mine sites were
identified and secured by the State. The Division of Minerals
works with the mineral industry and the counties to make lands
managed by the BLM safe once more.
The BLM does and will continue to, practice and use the
best science to address any new emerging issues. This can be
achieved only through cooperation with the State and with
industry. The mutual goal is to provide more consistency and
better predictability in the process. BLM's hardrock mining
surface regulations date back to 1981.
Recent updates have included use and occupancy rules and
acid mine drainage policy and hardrock mining regulations.
Secretary Babbitt in January of this year directed the BLM to
form a 3809 task force which would address shortcomings in the
current surface regulations, incorporate BLM policies which
were developed to supplement existing regulations and meet
BLM's strategic plan of incorporating standards.
The task force has embarked on a scheduled 2-year effort to
update the 3809 regulations. Issues to be addressed include
eliminating or modifying the 5-acre threshold for notices,
revising the definition of unnecessary and undue degradation,
expanding environmental and reclamation requirements and
clarifying casual use. Scoping meetings were held this spring
throughout the country. We have made public our summaries of
the comments at the scoping meetings.
I will conclude here. I believe I mentioned earlier I have
submitted my full written statement for the record and I am
prepared to answer any questions that you might have. I will
try not to exceed my 5 minutes since I have a red light.
[The statement of Ms. Rivers-Council may be found at end of
hearing.]
Mrs. Cubin. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Now,
the Committee would like to welcome Larry Gadt. I had no idea
that you would be here. I am delighted that you are. I don't
want to put you on the spot, but you have heard bashing,
including from me, not at you, but at the system and how it
works with Washington making a one-size-fits-all policy. If you
would like to just say anything to the Committee for the
record, I would certainly love to have you do that.
STATEMENT OF LARRY O. GADT, DIRECTOR, MINERALS AND GEOLOGY
MANAGEMENT, U.S. FOREST SERVICE
Mr. Gadt. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Mrs. Cubin. And bashing is way too strong.
Mr. Gadt. That's all right. I guess that I view the--not as
much bashing, I guess, I didn't feel this morning. I heard a
lot of good comments and I really appreciate that. In my visits
to the field, I ask very simple questions of folks, be they
local industry or our own employees of how are we doing and how
are we working together and how are we getting our job done.
With few exceptions, and there are very few, I hear nothing but
glowing comments about our ability to work together with the
industry to do the environmental job we are responsible for and
at the same time facilitate removal of these resources.
To be perfectly honest with you, if I knew what the size
was, if I had all that wisdom, I would not have a clue to know
how to go about doing that and I don't know if I am answering
your question, but I don't know what the right size is. In our
case, we got input from our field to ask what different sizes
they feel they need and we are still working with that, so I am
not smart enough or wise enough in my professional background
to determine that and that is the best I can do on answering
that one.
Mrs. Cubin. We are certainly glad that you came and it
always helps to have people get outside the beltway and hear
what happens out here.
Mr. Gadt. Thank you.
Mrs. Cubin. Representative Gibbons, would you like to begin
questioning?
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you. I would be happy to. Let me start
with Mr. Blackwell, if I may. You mentioned in your testimony,
Mr. Blackwell, that there is a historical trend over the years,
up to 1981 regulations that are now in effect, that many
abandoned mines have gone unreclaimed, or pose a serious health
or safety hazard to the public. Who bears the responsibility
today for the reclamation of those mined areas and those mines,
as you foresee that?
Mr. Blackwell. Well, I am not an expert in the area and I
will give a brief answer and perhaps Larry can elaborate, but
determination of responsible parties on these abandoned mines
is tricky and time-consuming and onerous business, and using
the process, as I understand it, we have come up with who we
believe are the responsible parties, and we use Superfund
authorities and funding to try to fix these up. As you well
know, it is an enormous problem all over the West, the
abandoned mines and different environmental problems with them.
Mr. Gibbons. When there is no direct responsibility to a
previous mine occupant or previous mine operator, has the
Superfund been able and adequate to address the issues that
face you when you go to reclaim or improve these areas? Have
the Superfund requirements permitted you to do that, or do we
need, in Congress, to enact legislation that would allow the
Superfund to more easily address these issues?
Mr. Gadt. I will try to answer some of that. On the
national forestland, we have not completed inventory yet but we
have--at present, we anticipate around 38,000 abandoned mine
sites. A small percent of them would actually qualify for any
funding from CERCLA, RCRA any other source of Federal funds.
Also, a very small percent of them--actually, if we could
identify the potential responsible parties, a very small
percent of those actually fall in the category. So we have a
very large percent of other areas that we need to have funding
available and we are pursuing funding available to correct
those.
Our 1998 budget that you all just enacted or are acting on
includes funding to do some of that. I would like to add,
though, the industry has been very cooperative with us in
helping us to clean up these sites. Sometimes in existing
operations, but, also, going into watersheds where we are
trying to improve the overall quality of the drainage.
The Western Governors Association, we have a cooperative
arrangement with them, so with the Western Governors, the
companies, the source of the funds federally and so forth, we
have and are pursuing an effort to correct some of these
problems.
Mr. Gibbons. Would you suggest, since you said the
Superfund authority only applied to a very small percentage of
these operations because of the current language in the law,
that we should address the Superfund authority language to
broaden its coverage so that that money, that vast sum of money
that sits in that fund can be applied to these situations,
would you recommend that?
Mr. Gadt. You know, Congressman, I am not an authority on
Superfund wording and language, and I would rather not comment
on that right now and maybe do some staff work and get back to
you if that would be all right.
Mr. Gibbons. I would like to hear personally from you on
that issue.
Mr. Gadt. I will do that. Thank you.
[The information referred to may be found at end of
hearing.]
Mr. Gibbons. Ms. Rivers-Council, thank you, and I know you
and I have chatted in the past and had an excellent working
relationship and I know we will continue to do so. Let me say
that, first of all, in addressing your comments about the need
to revise the 3809 regulations, do you have a view that there
is a concern within the agency about the increase in delays of
permitting due to the changes that are going to be promoted in
the changes to the 3809 regulations?
Ms. Rivers-Council. Congressman, I am not certain that I
could fully respond to whether the changes in the regulations
will necessarily delay the permitting process. When I reflect
back on the 1981 implementation of the surface mining
regulations, we did make a commitment way back then to do a
review. We have found, over the last dozen plus years, that the
mining itself has become a little bit more complex. We are
going deeper into the Earth, the mines are becoming bigger, but
our partnerships are increasing. I can attest that over the
last couple of years, the time our process to complete
environmental impact statements takes, as an example, has
certainly gone down.
Mr. Gibbons. So you don't see any changes in the delays
that would be required for these mining companies in terms of
their permitting from any proposed changes that would be out
there.
Ms. Rivers-Council. I don't see that delays would
necessarily occur.
Mr. Gibbons. You mentioned shortcomings in the current 3809
regulations. Could you explain what you mean by shortcomings?
Ms. Rivers-Council. An example of the shortcomings of the
3809 regulations, raised both within BLM and enternally by our
customers, is the 5-acre threshold for requiring a plan of
operation rather than a notice.
Mr. Gibbons. So what you are saying to us is in these
proposed rule changes, you expect to see an increase in the
acreage for noticed operations, from 5 acres, say, to 20 or 25,
something, you know, some increase.
Ms. Rivers-Council. There is certainly some consideration
being given to eliminate that rule altogether. It would
certainly cut out the need for miners to notice the Bureau of
Land Management when they are going to disturb five acres or
less.
Mr. Gibbons. We were just chatting about the fact if you
eliminated that, then everybody would be under the planned
operations then and certainly be required to have a bonding
requirement under the planned operation, if that is your
intent.
Ms. Rivers-Council. That is a potential, certainly. But I
believe, until we have been able to review all of the comments
that came out of the scoping sessions, and we had over 1,800
comments, I don't believe we are prepared to say summarily that
that is going to be the case.
Mr. Gibbons. With the new 3809 regulations that you have
got with regard to bonding, there is a requirement in there for
the review process of the reclamation to include water, water
quality standards being met. Now, let me ask this question. You
would agree that that is in there?
Ms. Rivers-Council. I would agree that there are
references, very definitely.
Mr. Gibbons. And the standards have to be met and
determined before the bond can be released.
Ms. Rivers-Council. Well, we are not trying to implement
the standards. That comes under the purview of the State.
Mr. Gibbons. I am not asking you to regulate the standard,
just a determination has to be made that the standards are met
before the bonding can be released; is that not true?
Ms. Rivers-Council. Congressman, I would hesitate to give
you a specific answer on that.
Mr. Gibbons. Your opinion.
Ms. Rivers-Council. I don't have an opinion until the
scoping comments have been fully analyzed.
Mr. Gibbons. This is on the current bonding requirements,
not future. This is current bonding requirements that the BLM
has already made a final ruling and put into implementation in
March 1997, requiring water standards, water quality to be met
before the bonding can be released. My question would be, if
Dr. Myers' concerns about 30 years down the road problems will
arise, at what point can a bonding permittee expect to see his
bond released if he has paid into this sum his bond, satisfied
and released, at what point do you expect a bondholder, a
permittee, excuse me, to expect this to impact his operation?
Ms. Rivers-Council. If I understand your question, you were
asking at what point could the permittee expect to have their
bond returned after the mine has closed.
Mr. Gibbons. That is correct.
Ms. Rivers-Council. Or the operation itself has. The
anticipation would certainly be that upon full satisfaction
among all the partners, the miner, the State, the Federal
Government, BLM obviously included, that once that occurs, we
would be able to return that bond money. Now, that can easily
translate into a year to 2 to 3 years and currently it is up to
about 3 years after the operation closes down.
Mr. Gibbons. If an outside agency challenged the release of
the bond, for example, the Sierra Club or something to the BLM
and forced a complaint to be heard, saying 30 years down the
road this could cause some irreparable damage, that we should
not release that bond, would your agency then hold the bond
until the 30-year period?
Ms. Rivers-Council. I believe I would certainly have to go
back and rely on my advisors in the office, my technical
experts, on the exact definitions of how we would review that.
Mr. Gibbons. Would you go do that for us and give us some
feedback?
--------
The BLM bonding regulations provide that 60 percent of a
bond can be released if reclamation requirements are met for
backfilling, regrading and stabilization of leach pads, heaps
and tailings. The remaining 40 percent of a bond cannot be
released until the disturbed area has been revegetated to
establish a diverse, effective and permanent cover and until
any effluent discharged from the area has met applicable
effluent limitations and water quality standards for not less
than 1 full year, without violations and without the necessity
for additional treatment.
In Nevada, BLM is currently coordinating with the State of
Nevada Division of Environmental Protection and with
stakeholders to develop guidance to the industry regarding
release criteria of the remaining 40 percent of the bond.
Although the discussions are not complete, it appears that
based on current experience, release of the bond will occur
within reasonable timeframes, in full coordination with the
State regulatory agencies.
Ms. Rivers-Council. Absolutely. I would be happy to respond
to that.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Drozdoff,
I hope I pronounced your name correctly and I apologize. Would
the State of Nevada be able to achieve, in your opinion, its
goals, environmental goals, with the industry, and the mining
industry in particular, even if the 3809 regulations were not
in effect?
In other words, if the State of Nevada in its environmental
protection requirements, today, had the force and effect that
they do, would they be able to achieve the same environmental
goals without 3809 in existence?
Mr. Drozdoff. I would probably say, no. Just because when
the regulation--for example, with our reclamation regulations,
I think the State legislature takes very seriously the notion
of not duplicating activities, and if there was an activity
that had already been prescribed in Federal regulations----
Mr. Gibbons. Can you name one for us?
Mr. Drozdoff. Well, one would be perhaps the 5-acre issue
on public lands, because of the staffing needs and because,
again, the reason for nonduplicating of efforts, the State
legislature did not want to have DEP do the same thing that the
BLM was doing, so----
Mr. Gibbons. On a noticed operation.
Mr. Drozdoff. Exactly, right, so that would be an area.
Mr. Gibbons. But noticed operations don't have the same
impact nor the same usage or detriment as a planned operation
would have.
Mr. Drozdoff. Clearly, absolutely.
Mr. Gibbons. Under a planned operation, let's assume the
BLM removes the 5-acre requirement which would include you to
have the responsibility for every operation. According to the
BLM, that may be what they want to do is eliminate the 5-acre
distinction, putting everybody in a planned operation. Would
you say, in your opinion, that the State of Nevada has adequate
laws to cover environmental protection and reclamation for any
operation?
Mr. Drozdoff. I suppose we feel very comfortable with our
regulations that they exist and I am not an expert in 3809, so
I am at a little bit of a disadvantage there because I don't
know some of the nuances that may exist. Certainly, from our
standpoint, the regulations that we have, both cross-medium,
whether it is air, water, RCRA, we take pride in, we enforce,
and we do a good job in regulating those activities.
Mr. Gibbons. I would agree with you as well, so, thank you,
Madam Chairman.
Mrs. Cubin. Thank you. I think I will start with Mr.
Blackwell. Will the Forest Service begin proposing new mining
regulations after the BLM finishes with their process?
Mr. Gadt. We are in the process now and we actually started
with last November, soliciting input from our field units on
what they felt were the needs, if any, regarding 228(a)
regulations. Ours have been in place since 1974 and so we have
received some input from our field units and we are in the
process of looking at that now to determine what, if any,
changes need to be made in order to address the field concerns.
Did that answer your question?
Mrs. Cubin. Yes, it did. One little caveat here then. I
certainly hope, and I know the Forest Service would never do
this, but the BLM did, in taking 5\1/2\-year old input off the
shelf and then implementing that as a proposed rule, so I
certainly hope the public will be taken into consideration
before the rules are put out.
Mr. Gadt. Our input today has been post January 1997.
Actually, I think March and April, with I think recent
validations as recently as like in August, I believe.
Mrs. Cubin. Is that in-house input.
Mr. Gadt. Yes, it is all in-house input at this point.
Mrs. Cubin. But you will go out and do the appropriate
public--the 60-day comment on the rules and so on.
Mr. Gadt. Yes, right.
Mrs. Cubin. I want to make sure you do plan to take public
input before hand.
Mr. Gadt. Yes.
Mrs. Cubin. Great. That is all I need to know. I would like
to--let me make sure. I have all these notes, I want to make
sure I don't have anymore questions of Mr. Blackwell. I don't
see any right here. Mr. Drozdoff, would you agree with the
statement that there is no problem implementing the new bonding
rule?
Mr. Drozdoff. No, I would not agree with that statement.
They have clearly impacted operations and issues in Nevada, the
Division of Minerals needed to--or felt it was very appropriate
to actually get a new State law in place to expand the scope of
some of its statutes to better accommodate issues that stem
from the 3809 bonding rule.
Again, we have committed to work with the State office on
some of the activities, or some of the needs now that stem from
3809, but they have clearly created more work for at least two
State agencies, and so, no.
Mrs. Cubin. I am not going to ask Ms. Rivers-Council that
question because on June 19, 1997, Solicitor John Leshy
testified to the Committee, quote, ``The BLM tells me there is
no problem implementing the new bonding rule,'' and I don't
want to get you crosswise with anyone, but I just sort of
sensed at the time maybe that was an overstatement.
In earlier testimony, Mr. Drozdoff, someone suggested, and
I apologize, I can't remember who it was, that the State could
enforce the Federal law in environment. Would you agree with
that?
Mr. Drozdoff. Only insofar as that Federal law has been
delegated to the State.
Mrs. Cubin. Assuming it were.
Mr. Drozdoff. If we have a delegated program, for example,
under the Clean Water Act and the MPDS program and there was a
violation of a water quality standard from either a permitted
or an unpermitted facility, the State would clearly have the
ability, if it felt necessary, to take enforcement action on
that.
Mrs. Cubin. And you feel confident the State could
recognize your inspection, and then could have the wherewithal
under enforcement to maintain the high quality of the
environment.
Mr. Drozdoff. I do. You know, I think that the State, as I
stated earlier, the State does take pride and it goes beyond
DEP at this point. I think the State, whether it is the State
legislatures or other State agencies, I think the State does
take pride in what it does in the State and feels comfortable
in its approach.
Mrs. Cubin. Just very--you don't have to be specific about
this, but, generally, are the Nevada State environmental laws
as stringent as Federal laws?
Mr. Drozdoff. I would say that they are at least as
stringent. As I said, when it comes to federally delegated
laws, we implement specific requirements of those laws and
regulations into our programs, cross-media, and as we alluded
to earlier, there are other areas that are not even covered
under Federal law, such as groundwater protection and some of
the specifics of our reclamation statutes, State statutes, that
are also included, so I think that the State enforces, in the
programs that it has delegation, the State enforces those
Federal laws appropriately and, further, it enforces its State
laws and regulations appropriately.
Mrs. Cubin. You mentioned in your testimony the fact that a
special levy on miners pays for a liaison person between the
Nevada Department of Environmental Protection and the BLM to
en-
sure that the Federal and State permitting is smooth. Would you
elaborate on how that works and how it is working as well?
Mr. Drozdoff. Sure I would. It is a relatively new program.
It has been in place for about a year, and the liaison position
serves many functions. It serves on large scale issues, such as
reviewing our memorandum of understanding with the BLM and the
Forest Service on ways to improve that, but as Ms. Rivers-
Council said, there are other issues that continually have come
up that require more immediate attention and they are specific
on the ground issues.
At a specific mind-set, that may require that the two
agencies communicate effectively and quickly, and all three of
those areas, the liaison position has helped. Its genesis was--
the position was a 1-year position that was in place. The BLM,
the NDEP, environmental groups and industry, it seemed like it
was doing a good--it was providing a good service. Certainly, I
would think from the industry's perspective, they were able to
talk to both agencies at one time, which was an improvement.
And so I would say it has been a good success, and the point I
guess I would make about that in relation to the entire 3809
process is if it is determined that 3809 needs to be reviewed,
the area where some information would be--it would be
interesting to hear whether having this sort of flexible
approach, having the resources to fund liaison positions and
having ability to put forth meaningful memorandums of
understanding, I think, would go very far in everybody's role
of protecting the environment, but at the same point, give
everybody the tools to do it in a way that makes the most
sense.
Mrs. Cubin. One last thing. We certainly would welcome
written testimony from the State engineer.
Mr. Drozdoff. OK.
Mrs. Cubin. I guess I can go ahead and cover this--well,
never mind. Now, I would like to move to Ms. Rivers-Council,
and first of all, congratulate you and you, Mr. Blackwell, on
testimony from Mr. Drozdoff that said how you worked together,
and that is absolutely the most important thing and it really
is the only bit of good news I have really received coming out
into the districts and into the States and I really do
appreciate that and just encourage you to keep up that level of
cooperation in working with the local people, the companies and
the State governments.
You mentioned the USGS' efforts to study the hydrology in
the Humboldt Basin. How does this effect differ from Dr. Myers'
work, the Great Basin Mine Watch?
Ms. Rivers-Council. I really can't respond to how Dr.
Myers' work differs or has similarities to what the USGS is
doing in concert with other partners, universities, industry. I
really cannot speak to that at all, Congresswoman.
Mrs. Cubin. That is fine. Let me ask you this question,
then. What do you think of the concept that if the Nevada State
engineer does not interpret Nevada environmental laws, water
laws appropriately, that the BLM should step in and enforce
those laws.
Ms. Rivers-Council. I am not sure I understand if you are
asking me for an opinion or if something has been stated in
that regard.
Mrs. Cubin. And this certainly, I want to be fair to Dr.
Myers, so if he hears something here he disagrees with, I
encourage you to send in your written response afterwards, but
after his testimony, I asked him if my understanding was
correct, that he would suggest that if the Nevada State
engineer was not interpreting Nevada water law or environmental
law correctly, or appropriately, that the BLM should step in
and do that, and you heard his answer.
Ms. Rivers-Council. I do remember the question now that I
have heard you ask it again. I guess I have not even considered
that the State water engineer could not interpret
appropriately. We do work so closely together, the BLM and the
State, and our relationships are intact in such a way that if
there are concerns or disagreements, we are able to at least
sit down and try to talk through what those issues are. It
would be very difficult for me to even envision that we would
have to necessarily step in over the water engineer.
Mrs. Cubin. Thank you. Congress did the 2-acre exemption
under Smacker in the late 1980's because there was evidence
that--when I say ``did in,'' I mean they eliminated it. There
was evidence that they were stringing--that some coal miners in
Appalachian, not Wyoming, were stringing some of those 1.9-acre
sections and so they took that back.
Do you have any fear that if the 5-acre exemption was
eliminated, I mean, I have fear that what Representative
Gibbons talked about might happen. Do you have any opinion on
what impact that stringing together could have with the 1.9-
acre operations?
Ms. Rivers-Council. I would hesitate to try to compare the
mining laws with coal mining because, No. 1, I know very, very
little about coal mining and probably just a fraction more on
mining activities. I believe that Secretary Babbitt's intent is
to fully scope out the impacts of either eliminating the 5-acre
threshold or maintaining it.
Mrs. Cubin. So that wouldn't fit at all, then. Everyone
would just be in operation.
Ms. Rivers-Council. I think there are a couple of
possibilities. It could remain that it is a notice issue or it
could become a full plan kind of an issue, or it could be
considered along with basic surface use, and that is one of the
elements of the scoping that is being reviewed, which gets into
casual use, and that is basic surface disturbance.
Mrs. Cubin. Thank you. I don't have any more questions.
Just a statement that I am delighted to see a woman in your
position because, frankly, sorry guys, we need a lot more
women.
Ms. Rivers-Council. Thank you. I agree with you 100
percent.
Mrs. Cubin. This will conclude the official part of the--
not the official, but the testimonial part of the hearing. I
want to say one thing. I know that there are people here and
people who wish they could be here who wanted to be able to
testify in front of the Committee, and Jim wanted to make this
statement.
Mr. Gibbons. I had it all written out.
Mrs. Cubin. This is his statement. He is the guy here, he
can do it.
Mr. Gibbons. I just wanted to offer, Madam Chairman,
because of the limited time here today and the number of
witnesses who wanted to testify who had information that they
thought would be pertinent to these hearings, that we offer
them an opportunity to submit in writing, and I would be happy
to act as the receiver of that information to ensure that it
got to the Committee and into the public record, any comments
that they wanted to make, that they feel should be a part of
the public record here today. So I would ask unanimous consent
from the Committee that we have an opportunity to submit
written testimony from those who were not provided an
opportunity today, within a timeframe and I would limit that to
about a 3-week period.
Mrs. Cubin. Actually, we don't even probably need unanimous
consent. That is the policy of this Subcommittee, although the
3-week period that you request is longer than is typical.
Usually we have a 10-day period before we close a record, but I
am certainly happy to grant a 3-week period where anyone can
send written testimony or comments on testimony that you may
have heard and you can send that either to Representative
Gibbons or directly to the Committee, which is generally the
way that works, so thank you all.
And the clerk, who is the real boss of this place, says be
sure to include that those comments should say for the public
record when they are submitted. So thank you all very much for
your attendance here today and your concern about what is going
on in the State and the country and it has been my pleasure to
be here in Nevada with you and I do certainly hope to return.
[Whereupon, at 1:10 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Additional material submitted for the record follows.]
Statement of Bill W. Upton, Placer Dome U.S. Inc.
My name is Bill Upton. I am the Manager of Environmental
Affairs for Placer Dome U.S. Inc. (PDUS). In this capacity, I
have direct and oversight permitting responsibilities for PDUS.
Placer Dome U.S. Inc. operates three large gold mines in the
United States (two in Nevada and one in Montana) and conducts
extensive mineral exploration throughout the west including
Alaska. Our United States operations employ a total of 955
people. We employ people in Nevada, Montana, Alaska and
Kentucky.
Placer Dome U.S. Inc. has a long history of permitting and
operating on public land in Nevada and Montana. Our most recent
permitting experience is the expansion of our existing mining
operations. In Nevada, Cortez Gold Mines began operations in
1969 and is located primarily on public land administered by
the BLM and Bald Mountain Mine began operations in 1981 and is
located exclusively on BLM administered lands. Our Golden
Sunlight Mine in Montana began operations in 1981 and is
primarily located on private land but also operates on some BLM
administered land.
All of our operations are permitted under the requirements
of 43 CFR 3809 and have undergone extensive environmental
reviews pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act
(NEPA). Permitting under 3809 and NEPA has been ongoing at
Cortez Gold Mines since 1990. The BLM completed their first
Environmental Impact Statement for Cortez in 1993. Subsequent
discoveries led to the permitting of our Crescent Pit and
preparation of another EIS for our Pipeline Pit and No. 2 Mill
Expansion. The BLM is currently completing an Environmental
Impact Statement for the most recent Cortez Plan of Operations,
``The 1996 Amendment to the Pipeline Plan of Operations, for
the South Pipeline Project,'' which was submitted in September
1996.
In 1993 PDUS acquired the Alligator Ridge Mine, which was
originally permitted under 3809 in 1981 by another operator,
and merged it with our nearby Bald Mountain Mine operations
which began commercial scale heap leaching operations in 1985.
The BLM completed an EIS for the expansion of Bald Mountain
Mine in 1995 and most recently permitted Bald Mountain's LJ
Ridge expansion. In 1993 Bald Mountain mine received the Nevada
Governors Award for outstanding reclamation and just this year
PDUS received the BLM National ``Health of the Land Award'' for
our reclamation efforts conducted at the Alligator Ridge Mine.
At Golden Sunlight in Montana initial mine development was
permitted in 1981 under the Montana Mining and Mineral Policy
Act and the Montana Environmental Policy Act. In 1995 the mine
submitted an application to expand operations and the Montana
Department of Environmental Quality as the lead agency and the
BLM as a cooperating agency are completing an EIS for the
expansion.
Nevada and Montana have primacy for permit programs
required by the Resource Conservation and Recovery, Clean
Water, and the Clean Air Acts. In addition both states have
regulations requiring the reclamation of lands disturbed by
mining. Each PDUS mining operation has obtained and must comply
with the requirements of these various state and Federal
permits as well.
PDUS supports reasonable surface management and permitting
regulations for our operations on both public and private
lands. Based on our experience with permitting mining
activities on public lands in two different states, we believe
the current Federal permitting requirements adequately protect
public lands and that any further Federal permitting
requirements or regulation would be of little benefit and would
only duplicate existing State programs and complicate the
excellent State and Federal permitting and regulatory programs
in these states.
The remainder of my testimony will center on the BLM's
review of possible changes to their surface management
regulations for mineral operations under 43 CFR 3809. PDUS had
the opportunity to tour several members of the BLM Task Force
conducting this review at our Pipeline Project in April and at
Golden Sunlight in early September. The Task Force saw first
hand how many of the issues they are concerned with in 3809 are
being managed effectively on the ground under their current
regulations and the strong State and Federal regulatory
programs in both states.
For example at Cortez they saw Notice Level exploration
drilling operations and the controls incorporated in these
operations to prevent unnecessary and undue degradation. They
walked over areas where similar activities had been conducted
the season before and which had already been reclaimed and
which were nearly indistinguishable from the adjacent
undisturbed land. They saw the comparatively low density and
intensity of disturbance typical of this activity. We explained
to them how important Notice Level exploration is to our long
term planning and survival, how it provides the opportunity to
gain timely access to prospective areas to further assess their
mineral potential before investing the enormous amount of time
and money required to permit Plan Level disturbance (greater
than 5 acres) under 3809.
At Golden Sunlight the details of their steep slope
reclamation plan including a sophisticated soil cover,
revegetation emphasizing the establishment of native plant
species and comprehensive reclamation monitoring program were
observed. The Task Force observed the importance of
incorporating site specific conditions such as topography,
soils and precipitation into the reclamation plan and how this
had been accomplished through the existing State and Federal
permitting program in Montana. They also saw the distinct
differences in site conditions between Golden Sunlight and
Cortez. Unlike many other industries mining can only occur
where the resource is located. The contrast in site conditions
between Golden Sunlight and Cortez and the resulting
differences in their reclamation plans are a good example of
why ``one size fits all'' performance standards would be
inappropriate for hard rock mining given the wide variety of
site conditions within which it can occur.
Pit backfilling including the enormous expense in dollars
and resources to accomplish it, the potential adverse
environmental impacts associated with it and the loss in
potential mineable resources it would result in were discussed
at both operations with the Task Force. The Task Force learned
first hand how this issue was included in the alternative
analysis during the permitting of both operations and therefore
is already receiving detailed evaluation as part of existing
State and Federal permitting requirements.
Most importantly the Task Force saw how permitting and
regulation of hard rock mining is being effectively coordinated
with State Government in both Nevada and Montana. They saw how
the permitting role of these States on issues concerning air
quality and water quality and quantity is being coordinated
with the BLM and effectively carried out in a manner protective
of public lands.
We took the opportunity while the Task Force was touring
our mines to emphasize that while they were considering
revisions to their 3809 regulations there were many other new
or pending state and Federal regulatory proposals which
individually and collectively would have significant affect on
our operations and our industry in general. The most important
of these new and pending rulemakings include the following:
EPA's addition of hard rock mining to the list of industries
covered by the Toxic Release Inventory requirements, new
particulate standards for regulating dust, proposed regional
haze regulations, efforts to possibly narrow or eliminate the
Bevill Amendment, and proposed Hard Rock Mining Framework, and
the new BLM bonding requirements. We urged the Task Force to
consider these recent or pending regulatory changes as part of
their review.
In summary PDUS believes, as we showed and explained to the
BLM 3809 Task Force, the existing 3809 regulations are working
to protect public lands. As new and expanded mining methods and
operations begin the current 3809 regulations complemented by
strong state regulatory programs have provided for and will
continue to provide for the adequate protection of public
lands. Contrary to those who oppose mining or would support
additional regulatory controls on our operations, we have not
seen any evidence that additional regulation is warranted. The
examples I've provided from our operations in Nevada and
Montana are testimony to the fact that current regulations are
comprehensive and when properly implemented in coordination
with state programs adequately protect public, as well as,
private lands.
I want to thank you for the opportunity to address this
Committee and will do my best to answer any questions.
------
Statement of Everett E. Gustin
Madam Chairman, Honorable Members:
Welcome to Elko. I sincerely appreciate your willingness to
conduct this oversight hearing on this most vital issue. More
importantly, that you are reaching out for constituent input is
very encouraging.
Having been involved in the mining industry in the Western
United States for some twenty-seven years in several different
capacities ranging from tramp miner to superintendent of mining
at two large operations, to mine claim holder, to owner of an
independent contracting business serving mining, I've been
afforded many different perspectives on the evolution of the
regulatory regime and political and populist perceptions of the
value of mining in modern day life in this country.
But how these perceptions and attitudes interface with
reality and legality is the subject at hand today. The current
effort to rewrite through administrative fiat mining rules and
regulations that have taken over one hundred and thirty years
to evolve and be refined is at best, the height of bureaucratic
arrogance and at worst, a crude, misdirected and illegal power
play that simply cannot be tolerated by Congress, the states,
the courts or the people of this country.
Stepping away from generalities and moving into specifics,
I offer the following for your consideration:
Why are we bringing forth words here today to our duly
elected representatives asking them to rein in the activities
of a government employee run wild? An appointee within whose
purported purview it is, to write the regulations, implement
the rules, and review and adjudicate decisions concerning basic
individual rights violate the separation of powers doctrine.
The western United States ``subject'' of this medieval realm,
who thought he owned the possessory title in mining, grazing,
water or agricultural rights, and the rights to make
improvements on such, is dragged through a kangaroo gathering
called the court of administrative appeals, where the
legislative, executive and judicial branches have been rolled
into one easy instrument of rule without recourse.
And what is the alleged mechanism justifying this complete
bypass of our system of checks and balances and the separation
of powers?: The proprietary interest of the Federal Government
in 87 percent of the State of Nevada. The very Federal
Government of whose mandates include fairness and equality
between the States and of the Bill of Rights for our individual
citizens. Where did we go wrong? How many people in the State
of Nevada and the other western States are chained to the
arbitrary rule of appointed and, anointed by some,
administrative henchmen such as the Secretary of the Interior?
A position now apparently on a historically increasing momentum
with the inclination to assign itself police powers, ignore
Federal law attempting to regulate itself, i.e. the
Administrative Procedures Act, and strip American Citizens of
their Bill of Rights when engaging in activity out on the land
that is purported to ``belong to all of us.''
Justice Scalia writing for the majority in the June 27,
1997, Supreme Court case Printz vs U.S., instructed us: ``The
separation of the two sovereign spheres is one of the
Constitution's structural protections of liberty. Just as the
separation and independence of the coordinate branches of the
Federal Government serve to prevent the accumulation of
excessive power in any one branch, a healthy balance of power
between the States and the Federal Government will reduce the
risk of tyranny and abuse from either front.''
To quote further: ``In the compound republic of America,
the power surrendered by the people is first divided between
two distinct governments, and then the portion allotted to each
subdivided among distinct and separate departments. Hence a
double security arises to the rights of the people . . .'' and
``Federal commandeering of State governments is such a novel
phenomenon that this Court's first experience with it did not
occur until the 1970's when the E.P.A. promulgated regulations
requiring states to prescribe auto emission testing . . . and
on this issue, the Courts of Appeals for the Fourth and Ninth
Circuits invalidated the regulations on statutory grounds in
order to avoid what they perceived to be grave constitutional
issues. The District of Columbia Circuit invalidated the
regulations on both Constitutional and statutory grounds. After
the Supreme Court granted certiorari to review statutory and
constitutional validity of the regulation; the Government
declined to defend them and instead rescinded some and conceded
the invalidity of those that remained. . . .''
And in conclusion, he wrote . . .
``We held in New York that Congress cannot compel the
States to enact or enforce a Federal regulatory program. Today
we hold that Congress cannot circumvent that prohibition by
conscripting that State's officers directly. The Federal
Government may neither issue directives requiring the States to
address particular problems, nor command the States' officers,
or those of their political subdivisions, to administer or
enforce a Federal regulatory program. It matters not whether
policymaking is involved, and no case by case weighing of the
burdens or benefits is necessary; such commands are
fundamentally incompatible with our constitutional system of
dual sovereignty. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of
Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is reversed.''
I'm certain that the Honorable Members here today are
familiar with and understand the intent of the court's
instruction. So, I ask you today, are Members of Congress ready
to tackle this issue politically and legally or will the burden
fall to the directly affected parties yet again?
Mining is America's financial backbone. The Mining Law is
the last great vestige of acquiring proprietary interest by
common law principle, mixing sweat with soil to earn equity.
Mining has made America strong without subsidy.
I've witnessed 70 percent of the mining claims be regulated
and taxed out of business in the last several years. I've
experienced a 40 percent reduction in my personal business this
year because of an illegal bonding rule implementation. Mining
has been under an escalating P.R. assault for the past several
years. We try to respond with reason and logic and compliance
and what does it get us? More assault, more restrictions. I've
personally traveled to countless meetings, raised funds for
lawsuits on behalf of mining, been personally harassed for
becoming politically active and openly advocating for mining.
Many others have made these and other sacrifices, but we are
losing the war. I encourage you to legislate, leverage funding
and even litigate to bring this insanity to an abrupt halt.
There is nothing to be gained by allowing the 3809 rewrite to
advance as proposed, and everything to be lost.
You have either heard or will hear from others today that
the mining industry in Nevada does an excellent job under the
current statutory framework. No notable shortcomings are
evident. I assure you that an industry already suffering under
falling commodity prices, over-regulation, severely shaken
stock market confidence and severely restricted access to prime
exploration land will have no alternative but to look
elsewhere. They will continue to take their money, expertise
and many jobs with them.
I understand the difficulties you face in Congress from a
political and ``numbers game'' standpoint. Perhaps a challenge
to this action on constitutional grounds would be more
productive for us all. The Supreme Court seems to agree.
The states are and can continue to be capable of enforcing
regulations to ensure environmentally responsible mining
activity. Please pave the way to allow that to happen.
Thank you for the opportunity to present my views.
------
Statement of Royce L. Hackworth, Chairman, Elko County Commission
Madam Chairman and Subcommittee Members on Energy and
Mineral Resources, I am Royce L. Hackworth, Chairman of the
Elko County Commission and owner of Hackworth Drilling Inc.
I want to welcome you to Elko the county seat of Elko
County. I appreciate this Subcommittee coming to the people and
area where the revision of the 3809 regulations will effect. It
shows the mining industry, the residents of Elko County and the
United States the willingness and concern you have in getting
the facts on whether the BLM needs to rewrite the 3809
regulations.
Elko County is 10,900,000 acres in size, yet only 28
percent of it is under private ownership. The other
approximately 72 percent of the county is Public Lands under
Federal Management. On the public lands in Elko County the
mining industry does explore for and find many valuable mineral
deposits, such as gold, silver, copper, barite bentonite and
gypsum just to name a few. The mining industry creates many
good paying jobs in the exploration of and development of these
resources. On average the industry pays in excess of $38,000
per year plus benefits in the jobs it creates. The jobs that
are created employ people with PhD's all the way down to those
who did not complete high school. The mining industry creates
good paying jobs for men and women alike. These high paying
jobs do not make their employees depend on state and Federal
subsidized housing, food programs, health care programs to live
the American Dream. In fact the industry and their employees
pay taxes for those who depend upon state and Federal programs
just to live.
My concern is the change in attitude toward the mining
industry by the Federal agencies by the implementation on undue
or excessive regulations. What troubles me is the method and
reasoning the BLM has used in deciding ehange the 3809
regulations. I do not believe nor will I accept the Secretary
of the Interior haviing the power to circumvent the NEPA
process and Congress in changing the 3809 regulations. The BLM
does not clearly define a purpose and need along with a
definitive and specific proposed action for public scoping as
NEPA regulations require that every EIS ``briefly specify the
underlying purpose and need to which the agency is responding
in proposing the alternatives including the proposed actions.''
40 CFR 1502.13. When the secretary makes a statement (in his
letter of January 6, 1997) that ``It is plainly no longer in
the public interest to wait for Congress to enact legislation .
. .'' I fear for the future of our country. Nor the framers of
our Constitution or you as duly elected Members of Congress
would or should believe that any Federal agency could obtain or
try to circumvent the powers given to Congress. The 3809
regulations are not an impending emergency to our national
security. So why should the Secretary be permitted not to
follow the normal NEPA process or circumvent Congressional
wisdom.
The Federal public land agencies cannot nor should not be
given unlimited ability to create regulations without
Congressional oversight. Let me give you a couple of examples
of regulations run amuck by the Federal Land agencies in our
county.
1. Here in Elko County, U.S. Forest Service employees of
the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, are protected by agency
regulations that prohibit them from being subpoenaed to testify
before a grand jury. A classic example of a employee being
immune from the laws that every citizen of the United States
has to abide by.
2. Where logic does not work when it comes to Federal land
managers just following the regulations they are in charge of--
Jarbidge Community Cemetery. Elko County in trying to obtain a
one-acre addition to expand the current cemetery. The USFS
comes back to the county with a 20 year lease for the one acre
parcel. The county is in a dilemma. We do not know whether to
rename the cemetery the Jarbidge Community Time Share Cemetery
or the Jarbidge-Lazarus Cemetery. With the current boldness of
the Federal Land Agencies in creating new regulations, I feel
they believe, they have been granted a higher power of
authority. However, I do not believe they will be able to raise
the dead every 20 years to renew their cemetery lease.
3. This year the BLM enacted new bonding requirements for
claim holders on the public lands without following the NEPA
process correctly. This is just putting more nails in coffin
for mining activity in the United States. We have already seen
a 70 percent reduction in claim holders when the $100 holding
fee per claim was enacted. By not encouraging people and
companies to look for mineral discovery here at home we are
driving the mining industry outside of our country with good
paying jobs.
I am here today as a County Commissioner asking you to
please stop the BLM from enacting undue regulations on the
mining industry. The current regulations are being handled by
the states and current Federal law. Please use what ever power
you have to curtail the Secretary of the Interior for not
following the true NEPA process in creating regulations. Also,
I am asking you to revoke the newly enacted BLM bonding
regulation and have the bonding regulations go through a true
NEPA process that defines the purpose and needs in the way the
law intended it to be enacted. In the State of Nevada we have a
comprehensive regulatory environment to protect the citizens
and the lands in our state.
I thank you for the opportunity to make this testimony.
------
Statement of Zane Stanley Miles, Chief Deputy, Eureka County District
Attorney
Chairman Cubin and Members of the Subcommittee:
My name is Zane Stanley Miles. I am a member of the Nevada
State Bar, currently serving as deputy district attorney of
Eureka County, the leading county in the United States for the
production of gold. I am here representing the district
attorney's office and Eureka County. My office and Eureka
County government are grateful to the Committee for its
decision to come to Gold Country, U.S.A., to hear our comments
on proposed revisions to hardrock mining regulations.
My qualifications to give testimony before you today are
based upon my extensive experience in and observing local
government in Nevada, California, Colorado and Washington
State. During the past 20 years I have served as a district
attorney or deputy district attorney in three Nevada mining and
ranching counties and as public defender for Elko County where
we meet today. Previously, I was the editor of daily newspapers
in four different states, including two dailies in Nevada, and
served for some years as state editor and business editor of
the old Nevada State Journal in Reno. I don't consider myself
an academic expert, but I do know from practical experience how
local government works and should work. And I do know a lot
about rural Nevada and its economy.
There are many other persons scheduled to testify today who
are far better qualified than I am to discuss technical mining
matters. Therefore, our testimony will be concerned primarily
with the LEGAL effects of the regulations proposed by the
Department of the Interior.
It is our belief that there are no legal benefits--and that
there are substantial legal detriments--to be found in the
proposed regulations. When subjected to a cost/benefit
analysis, the proposals fall short of providing any rationale
for their adoption. The reasons for our belief are set forth
below.
I--THE MINING LAWS OF 1866 AND 1873 HAVE WORKED FOR 125 YEARS.
TODAY, THE LAWS HAVE BEEN GUTTED BY INTERIOR'S BUREAUCRACY.
Congress in 1866 and 1873 enacted legislation intended to
further and encourage development and use of the mineral
resources of the Western territories. Those Acts and other laws
effectively severed mineral rights from the basic fee estate,
and authorized the public to appropriate and develop the
minerals. Some authorization (patenting) was expressly spelled
out in the statutes; the laws also generally recognized the
Western laws and custom of prior appropriation to beneficial
use (unpatented claims).
Subject to bonanza and borrasca, boom and bust, mining
prospered in the West for a century. The majesty, the greatness
of the Congressional scheme was that the Western mineral lodes
were available to anyone willing to tramp the hills and look
for color. The resources were not solely for big business, they
benefited the little guy as well.
For years and years the small miner and prospector could
protect his interest in an unpatented claim by doing a small
amount of ``assessment work'' each year. Thus he could hold
onto a prospect until he could raise cash for development, or
sell the claim to a larger mining company which had the
financial resources to turn a claim into a property with a
positive economic yield. In some cases it requires expenditure
of millions, even billions, of dollars to convert a hole in the
ground into a cash cow.
A few years ago the bureaucrats in the Department of the
Interior decided that ``assessment work'' was environmentally
unsound. Instead, Interior decreed that an annual cash fee must
be paid for every unpatented claim. The result of that ill-
advised decision was to drive the small, cash-starved miners
and prospectors off their claims. They may have been able to
finance the required assessment work each year, or do it
themselves, but most of them could not come up with $200 or
$100 per year per claim. They were forced to forfeit claims,
instead of waiting out economic conditions for the proper time
to develop.
Ironically, almost all of the forfeited claims in Nevada
have been taken up by the big mining companies, the very
companies that Secretary of Interior Babbitt claims are reaping
unwarranted profits. I don't agree with the Secretary's
analysis, and Eureka County is pleased as punch to be the host
county for giant operations such as Barrick, Newmont and
Homestake. We admire their ability to marshal the billions of
dollars in resources necessary to develop disseminated gold
prospects.
But it is a pity that the big operators no longer depend on
the small miner and prospector to find mineral resources. And
most of the blame for that is chargeable directly to Secretary
Babbitt.
Let me tell you a brief, illustrative story about former
clients of mine. They're dead now, and I won't give you any
names, although a lot of the people in this room will recognize
the facts. The story actually is pretty well known in our area.
He was a small miner and prospector all his life. He and
his wife struggled, sometimes in abject poverty. Things never
came together for them, but they did stake some promising
claims. They did the annual assessment work, often themselves
with pick and shovel, to maintain possession. As time passed,
she was incapacitated with advanced diabetes; he became deaf
and his physical strength deteriorated.
Finally, they were able to sell some 75 claims to one of
the big mining companies in a deal that would have paid them
millions over an eight-year span. Life had passed them by,
however. They were able to buy a new car before he collapsed
and died from a massive heart attack; she died not long after.
I wish my clients had been able to enjoy more of the fruits
of their labors, but at least they received some benefit.
Remember, they were able to keep their claims because they
could satisfy the assessment requirements with manual labor.
Just a few years later, and they would have lost those 75
claims because they would not have had the money to pay the
annual fees imposed by Secretary Babbitt. The big mining
company which paid several million dollars for those claims
could have simply top-filed and waited until my clients
forfeited, picking up the claims for next to nothing.
Naturally, in light of management's responsibility to the
shareholders, it would have done so rather than paying my
clients several million dollars.
Perhaps Secretary Babbitt isn't evil; maybe he is only an
example of the doctrine of unintended consequences. But his
policy of requiring annual fees instead of assessment work has
deprived hundreds of small prospectors in Nevada, thousands
throughout the West, of the benefit of their labors, of the
prospect of riches. And that was done by bureaucratic fiat, not
after considered, measured debate in Congress.
The Mining Laws of 1866 and 1872 worked, and worked well,
until the Department of the Interior came under the control of
a group of well-intentioned but ill-informed Secretary and
bureaucrats who have imposed adverse regulations without
approval of Congress. It is up to the Congress of the United
States to take back law-making power from the bureaucrats, and
revest that precious authority in the elected representatives
of the people.
There is a place, more than that, there is a need, in
development of the mineral resources of the West for both the
small prospector and the mega-corporation. Congress should
insure that there is room for both.
II--STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT ARE CAPABLE OF ENFORCING MINING
REGULATIONS; THERE IS NO NEED FOR EXTENSIVE FEDERAL ACTION.
Perhaps the most disturbing current trend in the Department
of Interior is the apparent belief that only the bureaucracy in
Washington, DC, knows what is best. The bureaucrats regularly
ignore local government, just as they regularly ignore the
Congress of the United States. It is appalling that Secretary
Babbitt can declare that, since Congress has chosen not to act
on some of his pet projects, that he'll impose his beliefs
anyhow by adoption of bureaucratic rules and regulations.
On a state and local level, the State of Nevada and
Nevada's mining counties have an excellent record of
commonsense enforcement of environmental and other controls on
the mining industry. Our enforcement is thoughtful, unbiased,
complete, effective, and accomplished with due regard for the
benefits resulting from mineral development.
From our viewpoint, certain things aren't really worth
worrying about. A good example is Secretary Babbitt's new
regulation which requires bonding for reclamation of areas of
disturbance of only five acres.
Nevada's land area is 110,000 square miles, 640 acres per
square mile. Perhaps a tenth of that area has mineral
potential. Far less than a tenth of that tenth (1 percent of
our total area) ever will be subject to surface disturbance.
Five-acre mine sites just don't amount to much in the greater
scheme of things. Imposing bonding requirements on five-acre
sites simply serves to impoverish the small, cash-starved miner
and prospector who is struggling to develop a prospect.
However, if Congress in its wisdom were to decree that all
environmental rules be applied to such small sites, the Nevada
Division of Minerals and the local District Attorneys would
enforce the laws. We've done so in the past in other contexts.
I know of important mines in Nevada which have been prosecuted
by the local District Attorney for violation of the Migratory
Bird Act or the Endangered Species Act. Some of us may not
think much of some of those laws, but as long as they are on
the books, we'll do our job.
Generally, in Nevada, our Legislature has seen fit to
authorize state agencies to contract with the Federal
Government to enforce such laws. It's part of our frontier
heritage. If it has to be done, we'd rather do it ourselves. We
still insist that the phrase, ``I'm from the Federal Government
and I'm here to help you''! is an oxymoron. So, our Nevada
Division of Environmental Protection enforces Federal
environmental law; our Division of Mines enforces Federal
mining laws; our Department of Wildlife enforces Federal
migratory bird laws and endangered species laws.
And in all of those cases, the office of the local District
Attorney is charged with the duty of prosecution after the
state offices have completed their investigation of alleged
irregularities. Only in very limited circumstances does our
Nevada Attorney General have the authority to intervene in such
matters.
In Nevada, we believe that laws should be enforced by the
political entity closest to the people, county government
through its district attorneys. We believe that local
enforcement is much more acceptable to the public than
enforcement emanating from some bureaucrat's office in
Washington. The imposition of regulations AND the imposition of
enforcement from above is antithetical to the American
experience. We don't need national police forces.
Unfortunately, in the past 30 years power-hungry Federal
bureaucrats have moved in that direction.
Our local District Attorneys prosecute even unpopular laws
without fear of favor. An example:
In one of Nevada's mining counties a few years ago a couple
of migratory birds managed to get inside the netting which a
mine had erected to keep birds and animals out of a cyanide-
laden pond. The mining company had gone to considerable expense
to comply with the applicable Federal laws. The exploring birds
died, of course. The Nevada Division of Wildlife investigated,
and submitted the facts to the District Attorney. The District
Attorney, although the decision certainly was unpopular with
mining interests, prosecuted and obtained a very substantial
fine in settlement. I believe it was $50,000, or $25,000 per
bird. The exact amount isn't important. What is important is
that the state and local authorities handled the matter,
expeditiously and efficiently, without any need for recourse to
the Federal courts.
If I can make any points to you today, it would be these
two:
(1) Congress must take its law-making powers more
seriously, and sharply limit the power of unelected bureaucrats
to make rules and regulations with the force of law, and
(2) Where Federal laws, rules and regulations are needed,
Congress should mandate that its laws be enforced by the states
and local governments if the states and local governments are
willing so to do. Direct Federal enforcement is unnecessary
unless states and counties refuse to act. That has not been the
case in Nevada.
Respectfully submitted by the EUREKA COUNTY DISTRICT
ATTORNEY, William E. Schaeffer, District Attorney
------
Statement of Jack Blackwell, Deputy Regional Forester, Intermountain
Region, USDA, Forest Service
Madam Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the Forest
Service's hard rock mining program.
For over 125 years, the mining industry has explored and
developed locatable minerals underlying Federal lands, under
provisions of the 1872 Mining Law. The Mining Law of 1872, and
legislation since 1872, make public lands available for mineral
development, allow private enterprise to develop and maintain
an economically sound and stable domestic mining industry, and
provide for the orderly development of domestic mineral
resources.
Under Forest Service regulations, operators are required to
reclaim lands to prevent or control damage to the environment
so that existing problems with abandoned mines are not
compounded.
Reclamation must be accomplished to protect other affected
resources and minimize on-site and off-site damage, and to
protect public safety. Before operations commence, the Forest
Service in conjunction with operators, must establish and
document in the plan of operations the reclamation standards
for each site-specific activity.
Currently, under USDA regulations, minerals are considered
in the overall context of planning for all resources. We have
made progress in the last few years in administering our
regulations for locatable minerals, including more thorough
documentation and disclosure of effects of mineral activities
under the National Environmental Policy Act. We strive to
continually improve planning and administrative activities
under statutory authority.
Hard Rock Mining Permitting Process
The Forest Service administers 5,000 to 6,000 plans of
operation each year for hard rock mineral projects. The
Intermountain Region, of which the Humboldt-Toiyabe National
Forests are a part, has the heaviest minerals workload within
the Forest Service. The Region administers about 2000 hard rock
plans of operation per year.
When we receive a mining proposal, it is analyzed to
determine if a plan of operations is necessary. If necessary,
the plan is reviewed to determine if it contains the required
information, what level of environmental analysis is needed,
and if additional time is required to review the plan of
operations. Within thirty days of receipt of a plan of
operations, the district ranger informs the operator of the
status of the plan.
Once all necessary information is provided, the
environmental analysis is undertaken to analyze and disclose
potential environment effects, and alternatives to the
proposal. The plan of operations may be revised to include any
additional items identified in the decision which were not in
the original plan of operations. Once the plan is complete and
a bond has been submitted for reclamation, the plan is
approved.
Generally, projects are processed expeditiously in
cooperation with the mining companies. The Forest Service
discusses the proposal with the company to determine how the
proposal can best meet the intent of the regulations. The
Forest Service works with other Federal, state and local
agencies to help coordinate the permitting process and avoid
duplication. Memorandums of Understanding exist for program-
wide coordination and are also developed for project-specific
needs to facilitate this cooperation.
When project applications are received, the Intermountain
Region strives to process mining operation applications quickly
to accommodate the company's schedule, within the constraints
of existing laws and regulations. For example, here in Elko
County, the Jerritt Canyon Mine Expansion and DASH Project,
both major undertakings, were permitted in less than 16 months.
In contrast, a 1996 study commissioned by the Gold Institute
found that the average time to permit a gold mine in the United
States was in the range of 4 to 5 years.
One shortcoming of the Forest Service's permitting process
for mining operations is our inability to meet consistently the
timeframes specified in minerals regulations. The Forest
Service is working hard to have these time frames work concur-
rently with other mandatory time frames, rather than
sequentially. The Council on Environmental Quality is also
working to remedy the problem of inconsistent time frames
through its NEPA effectiveness study.
Field units with the heaviest hard rock mining workloads
have also been encouraging a regulatory review and update for a
number of other issues. Accordingly, we are examining possible
modification of the surface-use regulations and have included
this effort in the fiscal year 1997 plan of work, which will
extend into fiscal year 1998.
These regulations were first issued in 1974, and no
substantive modifications have occurred since. They have
provided the Forest Service and the mining community with the
means of meeting their mutual environmental responsibilities to
protect the surface resources of National Forest System lands.
They are intended to provide that protection without
unreasonably inhibiting or restricting the activities of
prospectors and miners.
Current Status of Regulatory Review
The Forest Service is examining changes to address
shortcomings in the areas of occupancy, notices of intent,
plans of operations, reclamation, and bonding. This effort is
being coordinated with the Bureau of Land Management's review
of its surface management regulations. The joint agency goal is
to have regulations as consistent as possible.
As we stated earlier, managing the surface resource effects
of operations, much work remains to remediate the effects of
historical operations which have been abandoned. The Forest
Service, in cooperation with state and other agencies, is
working to identify and correct these problems.
This concludes my prepared testimony and I would be pleased
to answer questions you may have.
------
Statement of Jean Rivers-Council, Associate State Director, Nevada
State Office, Bureau of Land Management
Madam Chair and members of the Subcommittee. I appreciate the
opportunity to appear here today to discuss the status of permitting
hardrock mining operations on public lands managed by the Bureau of
Land Management (BLM) in Nevada. The BLM regulates these operations
pursuant to the general mining laws of the United States and the
Federal Land Policy and Management Act.
The State of Nevada is often called the Silver State. It became a
state shortly after the discovery of the rich silver deposits of the
Comstock Lode on the east side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Now,
more than a century later, gold production in northern Nevada has
eclipsed the silver production of the famous Comstock.
It is important to note that proper management of minerals
production is only one of many resource issues for the BLM in Nevada.
About 67 percent of the total land in Nevada is managed by the BLM. In
addition, BLM Nevada has recorded over 756,000 mining claims of which
135,000 are still active (involving more than two million acres). More
than half of all new claims filed annually with the BLM are recorded in
Nevada.
Today I would like to focus on one aspect of the BLM's Nevada
programs--the BLM's work with the mining industry. Nevada is the
largest producer of gold and silver in the United States. About 67
percent of gold production in the Nation is from Nevada. That amounts
to over seven million ounces per year. It can be said that the modern
gold rush started in Nevada. Public lands have played a significant
role in mineral development in Nevada. They continue to do so.
Processing Trends
To meet the needs of industry during this rush, the BLM and other
regulatory agencies have worked intensively to reduce the time required
to process notices and plans of operations. In the late 1980's, the
time required to review and approve plans of operations and
environmental impact statements was measured in years. The BLM
recognized the pace of processing those plans was unacceptable. We
addressed our process and improved it. In the last 2 years the BLM has
developed more consistent and predictable technical guidelines. In
several areas the agency has taken management steps to improve the
quality and timeliness of review. Even with more complex plans of
operation today, we have decreased review time. Some reviews of major
plans of operations and environmental impact statements in Nevada take
only twelve to fifteen months.
In coordination with agencies of the State of Nevada, the BLM is
now processing 13 major new mining projects, mine expansions, and
environmental impact state-
ments. There are about 2,300 active existing notices of operations and
335 open plans of operations on the public lands managed by the BLM in
Nevada.
Regulatory Framework
The basic Federal regulations under which we operate are found in
43 CFR Part 3800. One provision of these regulations relates to smaller
exploration and mining operations on public lands. These are operations
which cause a cumulative surface disturbance of five acres or less.
These operators are required to notify the BLM at least 15 calendar
days before commencing operations.
The regulations are different for exploration and mining projects
on public lands managed by the BLM that exceed five acres of
disturbance. These operators must have a plan of operation analyzed and
approved by the BLM. As a Federal agency, the BLM has a regulatory
responsibility to assure that all Federal laws and regulations are met.
The agency must properly analyze the information and impacts concerning
any proposed operation. It has a responsibility to disclose information
on mining operations to the public, as the ultimate owners of the land.
When the BLM processes exploration and mine plans and notices of
operations, it must follow numerous Federal laws. These include the
National Environmental Policy Act; National Historic Preservation Act;
Endangered Species Act; Native American Graves Protection and
Repatriation Act; American Indian Religious Freedom Act; Migratory Bird
Treaty Act; the Federal Land Policy and Management Act; and the various
statutes which make up the General Mining Law.
Changes affecting Processing Time
As I noted earlier, development of mineral resources in Nevada has
grown rapidly in recent years. Nevada production has escalated from
about a half million ounces of gold per year in 1981 to over seven
million ounces in 1997. A large percentage of that production occurred
on America's public lands. New production activity has shifted away
from mining in shallow pits with simple leach grade oxide ores. Today's
production comes from huge, deep open pits. Some of it also comes from
underground mining. Some mines are producing gold from more than 1,200
feet below the surface. Furthermore, the ores produced today possess a
far more complex chemistry and more expensive and challenging to
process than those mined in the past.
In many of the valleys of Nevada, the ore lies below the water
table. In the 1980's, these mines dewatered at an initial rate of 7,000
to 8,000 gallons per minute. To keep today's mines dry, water must be
pumped at rates exceeding 30,000 to 50,000 gallons per minute.
To provide scientific data to support future Federal and State
permitting and environmental activities, the U.S. Geological Survey
(USGS) is working as the lead agency with the Nevada Department of
Conservation and Natural Resources on a water resource study of the
cumulative impacts of mining in the Humboldt River Basin. Major funding
has been provided by Barrick Goldstrike and Santa Fe Pacific Gold
Companies (now a part of Newmont Mining Corporation).
Major mining corporations have also come forward as working
participants in the permitting process. They have voluntarily and
willingly funded third party contracts to prepare National
Environmental Policy Act documentation. Their willingness to work with
the system, and to pay a fair share of the cost, has been crucial in
reducing the length of the permitting process.
Good neighbors, cooperation
As I mentioned at the outset, the BLM has responsibility for a
major part of the land in Nevada. This agency works hard to be a good
neighbor. One way we do that is to work with the State in the mineral
exploration and mine permitting program. The BLM has reached some major
agreements with the State of Nevada, including two with the Nevada
Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.
The first involved development of a program with the Department's
Division of Environmental Protection for review of exploration and
mining plans, reclamation bonding, inspections and reclamation
requirements. Today there is a joint review process in Nevada.Under a
memorandum of understanding with the State Division of Environmental
Protection, we jointly hold over $375 million in reclamation bonds and
sureties for exploration and mining operations on public lands.
As part of this agreement, the State of Nevada,
through fees paid by industry and allocated by legislation, has
created a BLM-State mine permitting liaison position. This
person works to resolve mutual concerns regarding permitting.
Mining applicants benefit from the efficiency of this joint
operation.
Under a second agreement, the BLM and the Nevada Division of
Wildlife are cooperating in developing wildlife protection
requirements, especially for tailings ponds and other mine ponds which
contain chemicals used in mining operations.
The BLM also works closely with the Nevada Division of Minerals
regarding remediation of abandoned mine hazards. Mining has occurred in
Nevada for more than 140 years. During that time many prospectors and
miners abandoned sites without cleaning them up. The State is helping
us with this problem. Last year more than a hundred hazardous mine
sites were identified and secured by the state. The Division of
Minerals works with the mineral industry and the counties to make lands
managed by the BLM safe once more.
The BLM has and will continue to practice and use the best science
to address any new emerging issues. This can be achieved only through
cooperation with the State and with industry. I have already mentioned
the joint USGS-Nevada study of the Humboldt River Basin. The mutual
goal is to provide more consistency and better predictability in the
process. The results include some points in which we can all take
pride. Let me list some of the products of this collaboration between
the State, industry and Federal agencies.
Comprehensive mine revegetation guidelines and
standards.
Consistent water data analysis guidelines for mine
plans and environmental documentation.
Guidelines for ecological risk assessment.
Statewide guidance on how to address cumulative
impacts in environmental impact statements.
Challenges
The BLM's hardrock mining surface regulations date back to 1981.
Recent updates have included use and occupancy rules, an acid mine
drainage policy, and hardrock bonding regulations. Secretary Babbitt in
January of this year directed the BLM to form a 3809 task force which
would address shortcomings in the current surface regulations,
incorporate BLM policies which were developed to supplement the
existing regulations, and meet BLM's strategic plan of incorporating
``standards.'' The task force has embarked on a scheduled two year
effort to update the 3809 regulations. Issues to be addressed include
eliminating or modifying the 5-acre threshold for notices, revising the
definition of unnecessary or undue degradation, expanding environmental
and reclamation requirements, and clarifying casual use. Scoping
meetings were held this spring throughout the country. We will be
releasing to the public summaries of the comments at the scoping
meetings.
During your stay here in Elko I am sure you have observed that this
is a vital, growing city with a strong economy. The employees of the
BLM in Nevada are aware of the important role we play in maintaining
this healthy, growing economy. During the past decade technological
advances in the mining industry have allowed the region's gold mines to
create this expansion. The BLM has kept up with those advances. We have
reduced the time required to permit development of these mines on
public land. At the same time, we have learned how to address complex,
comprehensive plans for mines that are on a scale not imagined twenty
years ago.
This concludes my statement. I will be pleased to answer any
questions you may have.
______
Statement of Hon. Mike Franzoia, Mayor,
Congresswoman Cubin and Congressman Gibbons
I would like to thank you for providing me the opportunity to
address you and personally welcome you to our great City.
You are here today to listen to testimony regarding the mining
industry. As a citizen of this City for the past 17 years, I would like
to share with you the impact we have experienced from mining. All of
this I've witnessed first hand.
Elko continues to be a growing, thriving community. In 1980, our
population was less than 10,000. We now have a population that
approximates 19,000 and are projected to reach a population of nearly
31,000 in the next 15 years. Initially, this growth presented impact
challenges to our high quality of life. But through these challenges,
the community began receiving many things that we otherwise may have
waited for, or perhaps, would never have realized.
Growth has been good for Elko, and the mining industry has played a
role in our success. Let me give you a few examples:
To bring new families in to the area, the mining
industry invested in permanent, quality housing developments.
This moved Elko away from being a ``boom'' town in the
traditional sense. The traditional ``boom'' town is one that
grows temporarily, then upon industry down turn, literally
moves out. The permanent investment into Elko by the mining
industry insures long-term community sustainability.
Investment by the mining industry into our
recreational facilities enables us to offer activities to
citizens and visitors of all ages. Donations in cash and
services to recreational projects include equipment, parks,
sports fields, and a ski facility.
Access to cultural activities and events have improved
for all of us. Our museum is in the middle of a major
expansion, the Western Folklife Center is a major attraction
for citizens and visitor alike, and the Great Basin College now
has a theater where we can enjoy a variety of entertaining
performances. All of these are benefactors of the generosity of
the mining industry.
Education has been enhanced in Elko. What was once
known as the Northern Nevada Community College is now Great
Basin College. This fine institution offers education and
training in a wide variety of fields, including mining
technology. And we are all watching for this institution to
become a 4 year college in the near future. The mining industry
and its employee's have been great supporters of our college as
well as our public school system. A new junior high is now in
use in the Spring Creek area thanks to the mining industry's
major contribution to the project.
We are glad this industry has impacted our community--it has been a
positive impact on our quality of life. Legislation and regulation that
harm mining is certainly not in the best interest of this community.
Thank you for providing the time to me to share the excitement I
feel about this City and the wonderful things we have to celebrate--
much of it a result of our mining industry neighbors.
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