Red Lodge Clearinghouse

The groups, spread across 24 states and including several national organizations, said in their letter, circulated around Senate offices this week, that the only way to ensure hardrock mining does not inflict damage on resources like the Grand Canyon is to give the government authority to make such lands off-limits.

Claims near the Grand Canyon and other national parks have been rising steadily in recent years because of rising prices for metals, especially uranium. As of the beginning of this year, there are 1,130 claims for hardrock mining within 5 miles of Grand Canyon National Park, up from just 10 claims in January 2003.

Earlier this month, a federal judge blocked British mining company VANE Minerals Group PLC from mining for uranium on U.S. Forest Service land near the park.

The judge issued a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction after environmental groups sued the U.S. Forest Service for approving the company's drilling plan without full environmental reviews.

VANE had drilled exploratory wells at three test sites since the lawsuit was filed last month, but the judge's order immediately halted the operations (Land Letter, April 10).

"The Grand Canyon is America's treasure, and threats from mining and the 1872 law are rising every day," said Christy Goldfuss of Environment America, which coordinated the development of the principles. "Mining claims, fueled by rising metals prices, are skyrocketing. It's time the Senate took action."

The Sierra Club, the Colorado Environmental Coalition, the Nevada Conservation League and Environment Arizona also signed onto the letter, which included a set of principles that any reform bill produced by the Senate should contain, including the ability to stop any project that could damage the resources of the Grand Canyon or other national parks.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has been working over the past several months on an update of the 1872 hardrock mining law, which collects no royalties on the extraction of metals from federal lands, relying instead on a land rights system called patenting that sold off federal land and its resources for as little as $2.50 per acre.

The committee has held many hearings on reforming the law in recent months but has yet to produce legislation.

Last year, the House passed legislation that would impose an 8 percent royalty on the gross returns on minerals from new claims and a 4 percent royalty on existing claims filed under the law. Those royalties would be directed toward the cleanup of abandoned mines across the country that have contributed to some of the worst water pollution in the West.

Click here to view the letter.

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