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Conservation Group Files Mining Claim, Highlights Outdated Federal Mining Law

Effort shows 1872 Mining Law in desperate need of reform

Oregon Wild files a mining claim along the Illinois River, highlighting the lax restrictions on the procedure and demonstrating the need to reform the outdated 1872 Mining Law.

A suction dredge mining device. Photo courtesy of US Army Corps.

Sean Stevens, Oregon Wild, 503.490.7135
Susan Jane Brown, Western Environmental Law Center, 503.680.5513

In an effort to shine a spotlight on the antiquated 1872 Mining Law, the conservation organization Oregon Wild filed an official mining claim today in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest along the Wild & Scenic Illinois River. By staking their claim and paying $189 in fees, Oregon Wild joins over 800 claimants who have filed in the area since 2001 when a proposed mining moratorium for the Siskiyou Wild Rivers was canceled by the Bush administration.

“It is unbelievable how easy it is for mining developers to claim public land for their own private profit,” said Sean Stevens who staked the claim for Oregon Wild. “It would be comical if it weren’t so sad.”

Like all other hard rock mining claimants, Oregon Wild would owe nothing to American taxpayers if they find and extract valuable minerals.

“Mining may still have a place in Oregon and across the West, but the unfettered New Gold Rush has to end,” added Susan Jane Brown with the Western Environmental Law Center, a non-profit legal group that has closely followed the spike in mining activity in the last decade. “The 1872 Mining Law clearly needs to be reformed, but that doesn’t mean that laws protecting endangered species, rivers, and forests can be ignored in the meantime.”

The claim, named “Wild Legacy,” is located inside the proposed Siskiyou Wild Rivers Wilderness.  Dubbed “Oregon’s Yellowstone” by conservationists, this area is home to some of the healthiest wild salmon and steelhead runs on the West Coast and features nearly unparalleled plant diversity. Over 100 plant species identified in the Siskiyou Wild Rivers are found nowhere else on earth. Anglers, hikers, kayakers, and rafters come from all over the world to enjoy the rich recreation opportunities along rivers like the Illinois, Chetco, and Rogue.

In recent months, both commercial and hobby mining activity has increased in the Siskiyou Wild Rivers. Last year, the California legislature responded to an outbreak in suction dredge mining in sensitive northern California rivers by banning the practice in areas where salmon may be impacted. With the record-high price of gold, California miners have flocked to southern Oregon for the summer mining season.

Mining plans for a larger operation inside a federal mining claim along the Wild & Scenic Chetco River are currently being considered by the U.S. Forest Service. The plan calls for dredging a dump truck’s worth of river sediment every day. Legislation is currently pending in Congress that would disallow new claims on a stretch of the Chetco River and mandate that current claims are proven to be valid. Even with this bill, the larger issues of protecting the entirety of the Siskiyou Wild Rivers area and reforming the 1872 Mining Law remain.

While mining activity brings a relatively small local economic benefit, it leaves an expensive and toxic legacy. Across the nation, there are half a million abandoned mines that the Environmental Protection Agency estimates will cost $50 billion to clean up. Locally, Josephine County employment and economic statistics show that less than half of one percent of the county’s jobs are tied to the mining industry (including large sand and gravel companies that would not be affected by a hard rock mining withdrawal for the Siskiyou Wild Rivers).

In the 110th Congress, the House and Senate took up hard rock mining reform measures.  Oregon Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley co-sponsored the legislation in the Senate, and Oregon Congressman Peter DeFazio was a lead author of the House legislation. Key elements of the bill include: establishment of a reasonable and fair royalty system so that American taxpayers are compensated for the minerals extracted from their land, permanently ending the practice of “patenting” public land into private ownership, and expediting review of roadless areas and wilderness study areas to determine if they should be places off limits to mining. Unfortunately, neither proposal passed into law.

“We have a mining law that was written before bulldozers, suction dredge machines, and GPS navigation systems were invented,” concluded Stevens. “We’ve learned a lot in the last 140 years and it’s time to bring mining regulations into the 21st century.”

Oregon Wild expects to file the final paperwork on the claim on August 17th in Portland.

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