State mining needs a new reckoning, and new lawmakers
Let’s agree that we need minerals, and that mining employment is good for Arizona — a $1.25 billion payroll across the state each year. And, we reckon, there’s the picturesque historic appeal — burros, pickaxes, ghost towns.
The real legacy is another thing entirely, though: It’s at least 120 square miles of wrecked landscapes across the state.
Yawning pits, ominous mountains of tailings.
It’s 100,000 abandoned mines, with many leaking acid drainage. State officials say there could be as many as 5,000 of those. But then, who’s checking?
It’s 170.4 million pounds of waste rock with potential toxic drainage, generated in just the most recent two years tallied in the EPA’s national inventory.
It’s state and federal legislators who take campaign money from mining interests, as if that were OK. Phoenix 4th District Congressman Paul Gosar received at least $23,750 from them in 2016 alone. U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake got at least $10,300, and U.S. Sen. John McCain, $41,800.
Huge new mines, proposed or underway, threaten wildlife, scenery and water resources on our national forests and other public lands: on Oak Flat, northeast of Phoenix; in the Santa Ritas, near Tucson; the Patagonia mountains, around the Grand Canyon.
Their corporate proprietors are often based in Australia, Canada, China or Britain. And they pay no royalties to the landowners — you and me — when they pull billions of dollars in ore out of our federal public lands.
They hide behind the industry’s “Jobs, jobs, jobs” mantra, as if sane regulations aren’t compatible with profitable mines and high employment. But we expect food vendors to meet health standards. We require contractors to design safe buildings and not leave poisoned piles of construction waste behind. We don’t say “Jobs, jobs, jobs,” and let them get away with everything.
One dated study — the last time anyone looked — found that Arizona’s cleanup estimates may be billions of dollars short of realistic. And if a mining corporation bankrupts, it can leave a colossal mess behind for taxpayers to pay for or suffer from.
Other states with strong mining industries have made responsibility — rather than complacency — a priority:
❚ California requires that if you dig a big mine hole, you must put up the money to guarantee you will backfill it when you’re done. Or, you don’t mine.
❚ Montana requires enough money — beforehand, not after the fact — to ensure minelands are fully reclaimed. Local tax burdens that new mines sometimes create are paid for by the mining company.
❚ New Mexico requires that mine sites be restored so that they provide “a self-sustaining ecosystem appropriate for the life zone of the surrounding areas” and “without perpetual care.”
The nonpartisan Fraser Institute’s annual survey of mining executives reliably names Arizona among the world’s “top 10 most attractive jurisdictions for mining investment.”
Guess who’s getting shafted? You!