Native Sun News Today: Indian Country supports reform of mining laws

Wednesday, May 22, 2019  

WASHINGTON, DC – Navajo, Chilkat and Black Hills representatives joined lawmakers here on Capitol Hill on May 9, to announce introduction of the Hardrock Leasing and Reclamation Act of 2019.

“Reform is needed for outdated laws that go back to 1872,” said Navajo Nation speaker Percy Anderson of Manuelito and Gallup, New Mexico.

“Where I come from, past uranium mining activities within McKinley and Cibola counties have contaminated groundwater, resulting in unsafe drinking water for many communities that now have to import their drinking water from other locations and other sources for human and livestock consumption,” he said.

Companion bills in the House (H.R.2579) and Senate (S.1368) would entail large hardrock mining operations to meet some of the same requirements and standards that already apply to oil, gas, and coal development on public lands.

Among other measures, they would establish strong reclamation standards and bonding requirements. They would create a fund to restore abandoned mines and areas impacted by mining activities.

“Attention is now critical for healthy communities and clean drinking water,” Anderson said. “For too long we have suffered under the weight of extracting for minerals and fossil fuels and the devastation that extraction has done to our health and well-being for individuals, families, communities, and the environment. Too many have passed on without seeing their children and grandchildren prosper.”

The fund would be launched by requiring a 12.5-percent royalty on new mining operations -- the same amount as on oil and gas -- and an 8-percent royalty on existing operations, except for miners with less than $50,000 in mining income.

Until the 1872 Mining Act is reformed with these measures, mining will continue to be classified as the highest priority use of public lands, threatening national treasures and indigenous lifeways, according to Kimberley Strong, president of the Council of the Chilkat Indian Village of Klukwan.

“My people believe we are responsible for being stewards of the land,” she said. “As long as mining supersedes all other uses of the land, that makes it impossible to be stewards of the land.”

The bills call for “meaningful tribal consultation.”

The Village of Klukwan in southeast Alaska is situated on the banks of the Chilkat River, where salmon fishing continues to be the mainstay after millennia. The river is classified as the sixth-most endangered river in the United States, due to Constantine Metals Resources’ upstream exploration for copper and zinc.

The Canadian company’s Palmer Project would store mine waste, threatening the community’s very existence, Strong fears. “A toxic discharge will wipe us off the map,” she said, adding, “It is not a matter of ‘if;’ it is ‘when’.”

Yet the reform would “end the outdated claim-staking and patenting system that gives miners unfettered access to nearly all public land in the United States,” according to New Mexico Rep. Raul Grijalva’s office, which sponsored the bill in the lower chamber of Congress.

Announcing the bill, Grijalva noted that most of the major mining today is creating profit for foreign corporations that leave a mess behind for taxpayers to clean up.

“Our public lands, watersheds, and treasured landscapes belong to the American people, not polluters who don’t always cover their own cleanup costs,” he said. “Sweetheart deals for the mining industry come at a heavy cost for communities and taxpayers across the country,” he said.

Contact Talli Nauman at talli.nauman@gmail.com

The Long Overdue Need to Reform the Mining Law of 1872 (May 9, 2019)

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