Sign a bill to clean up abandoned mines into law

In 1999, U.S. Senator Max Baucus of Montana took to the Senate floor to introduce a bill aimed at helping clean up abandoned and inactive hard rock mines throughout the western United States.

“Settlement of the Mountain West was motivated, in large part, by mining. Take my home state of Montana. In the center of Helena lies Last Chance Gulch, where gold was discovered in 1864. Butte has been called the richest hill on earth, because “Our state’s motto is ‘Oro y Plata’ — gold and silver,” Baucus, a Democrat, told his congressional colleagues. It has created jobs, and is part of our culture and society. But mining, like many other economic activities, can have serious environmental consequences.

Baucus cited data that there are at least 400,000 abandoned mine sites in the West — a number the Interior Department now estimates at more than 700,000 — many of which severely impact waterways due to runoff.

The bill, the “Abandoned or Inactive Mine Waste Remediation Act,” never made it out of committee.

From 2008 to 2017, the federal government spent $478 million remediating hard rock mines in Montana — more than any other state. The Montana Department of Environmental Quality’s interactive database shows more than 7,000 abandoned mine features ranging from old gravel pits to exposed vertical mine shafts to tailings piles.

Members of Congress have made several attempts to introduce similar bills, but none have survived until this year.

The Good Samaritan Abandoned Hardrock Mine Remediation Act of 2024, co-sponsored by Montana U.S. Sens. Steve Daines, a Republican, and Jon Tester, a Democrat, was signed into law by President Joe Biden on Tuesday, creating a pilot program to allow mining In the abandoned Hardrock Mines. Promoting non-profit cleanup efforts at mining sites across the country.

“I’m proud to see my common-sense legislation to clean up our abandoned mines signed into law by the President — this is huge for Montana communities,” Daines said in a written statement to the Daily Montanan. “For too long, Good Samaritans’ attempts to clean up our abandoned hard rock mines have been hampered by bureaucratic red tape and liability rules, but now we will see progress in restoring these lands in Montana and former mining communities across the United States.”

Handling a multi-billion dollar project

The new federal law aims to speed up efforts by local and tribal governments and nonprofits to clean up abandoned mining projects that threaten waters across the West, including Montana.

The law creates a pilot program at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to allow decontamination from 15 abandoned, low-risk mines built before 1980, and grants exemptions from federal laws that prevented cleanup operations.

It would also allow federal regulators to certify a nonprofit, state agency or tribal government to do this work. Under the law, these entities designated as “good Samaritans” would also not have to bear legal responsibility for this action.

Any company that owns the mine or has a hand in the pollution will be barred from qualifying, according to the new law.

“For more than 25 years, Good Samaritans have tried to clean up abandoned mines, but they have faced significant obstacles and liability rules that hold them responsible for all pre-existing contamination generated by the mine — even though they were not involved in the mines before the cleanup effort,” said Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.Y. Democrat from New Mexico, in a written statement.

Heinrich sponsored the bill — its full title is the Abandoned Hardrock Mine Remediation Act — with Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho). They had several bipartisan sponsors in the House and Senate.

Hardrock mining refers to extracting minerals out of coal. Abandoned mines have left a legacy of polluting spills and disasters that have cost taxpayers nearly $3 billion to clean up in the past decade – just a fraction of the estimated $50 billion cost to clean up all the pollution. Pool debris containing sludge and toxic waste such as heavy metals can leach into the soil and wash into nearby rivers and streams during floods or snowmelt.

Risks

About 40% of the headwaters of western rivers and streams have been polluted after mining, the Environmental Protection Agency estimates, but liability laws would have required groups volunteering to do the cleanup to bear legal risks under federal laws for pollution they did not cause. .

Projects that would be excluded include heavily polluted mines where federal agencies oversee cleanup operations, or projects that require drilling.

The law opens up more mine cleanup projects that couldn’t be attempted before, said Jason Willis, an environmental engineer with Trout Unlimited who leads a mining pollution cleanup program across the West.

Local and tribal governments, states and nonprofits can already clean up certain types of pollution, such as runoff from mine waste piles or tailings piles, that would pollute streams during snowmelt or flooding.

But Willis said that addressing pollution coming from one place, such as pipes or outfalls, creates too many legal hurdles for third-party cleanup. Federal requirements aimed at holding polluters accountable also apply to voluntary third parties trying to clean up. These requirements included assuming legal responsibility, continuing to track the water and potentially cleaning it for the foreseeable future.

The hope is that these pilot projects, which have received exemptions to federal polluter penalty laws, can demonstrate proof of concept for a future permanent program.

“Never let perfect be the enemy of good,” Willis said. “We could do a 70% improvement in water quality that would support aquatic life, rather than a 100% improvement in water quality which is not achievable either financially or in the long term.”

Finding suitable projects across the West will require careful consideration, but shrinking water resources due to climate change and development make the cleanup even more important, Willis said.

“I think these projects will be even more important in the future to ensure we have access to some of these available water resources,” he said.

Editor’s Note: This story was written in partnership with Source New Mexico, also part of the State Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.