Back in the early 1870s, Gen.
George Armstrong Custer was among those excited by the rumor of
gold and glory in the Black Hills of South Dakota, my home state.
A lot has changed since then, but the same law that
presided over gold mining in Custer’s day — the Mining Law
of 1872 — has remained stubbornly on the books. The streams of the
Black Hills as well as landscapes across the American West have
suffered for it. The time has come for a change.
I am
blessed to have one of the great jobs, producing hunting and
fishing shows for television and radio. This gives me a lot of time
in the wild and lets me meet avid outdoors-people from across
America. On the whole, hunters and anglers are a practical lot. We
know we need metal for our modern conveniences, including our gun
barrels and our fishing reels. At the same time, hunters and
anglers understand the concepts of balance and responsibility. We
know all of us depend on healthy land and water, yet our ancient
mining law has left us badly out of balance.
One example
is Whitewood Creek, near Deadwood, S.D., which I saw for the first
time in 1960. Back then it didn’t run clear the way a
mountain trout stream should; it looked like so much dishwater. The
water turned out to be even sicker than it appeared: It was tainted
with arsenic and other acidic drainage from the Homestake Gold
Mine. It sure was ugly.
In Custer’s day, Congress
wanted to spur development of the West. So it declared that mining
was the “highest and best use” of public land, and it
virtually gave away public land and mineral rights. Since then,
mining has gone from pick-and-shovel operations to international
corporations, but the original law remains in place. Even if an
area is considered to be irreplaceable for wildlife habitat or
clean water, mining trumps all other potential uses. The law also
handcuffs local land managers who might tack on conditions but must
still approve the mine.
This buckaroo-style simply does
not fit the modern world. The city of Boise, Idaho, for example,
gets much of its drinking water from a dandy trout stream called
the Boise River. Now, a mining company from Canada wants to use
cyanide-leach gold mining at the headwaters. The city of Boise has
voiced its strong opposition to this mine, yet the U.S. Forest
Service’s hands are largely tied. It can’t say no,
because of the 1872 Mining Law.
Will the Boise River end
up like South Dakota’s Whitewood Creek? History,
unfortunately, says yes, because there are countless polluted
streams like Whitewood around the West. Sadly, the mining industry
has a long and well-known record of broken promises and tainted
waterways.
When corporations demonstrate that they
don’t want to be good citizens, the only thing to do is
change the law and require them to be good citizens. It’s a
shame, but that’s what we have to do. After decades of
mining, Homestake left South Dakota with the legacy of a poisoned
Whitewood Creek. The state sued and forced the company to pay to
restore the stream, which cost millions. Today, I’m happy to
report, the creek once again supports a wild population of brown
trout — I’ve caught a few myself. But it is always cheaper
and better to keep water from being polluted in the first place.
And what a shame it was that the state of South Dakota had to take
a company to court to force it to face its responsibilities.
The 1872 Mining Law is a relic of the days when a man
could take his pick and shovel out to a barren landscape and maybe
strike it rich. But that was 135 years ago. The good news now is
that there’s a move afoot to modernize America’s mining
law. I recently traveled to Washington, D.C., to testify before the
House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources to urge Congress
to vote for West Virginia Democrat Nick Rahall’s bill to
reform the mining law. Among other modernizations, it would require
mining companies to reclaim mined lands and restore tainted streams
to health. Mining has moved into the 21st century; now it’s
time the law followed suit.
Tony Dean is a
contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News
in Paonia, Colorado (hcn.org). He is the host and producer of Tony
Dean Outdoors, a regional television show, and a longtime
conservationist who lives in Pierre, South
Dakota.
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