6 guvs protest bill's public land sale

Gary Gerhardt, Rocky Mountain News

Published December 3, 2005 at midnight

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Six western governors put Congress on notice this week they oppose a measure pending in the U.S. Senate that would open millions of acres of public lands for sale to mining companies.

Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal wrote Sens. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., and Kent Conrad, D-N.D., of the Senate Budget Committee, on Thursday saying the sale of public lands in a budget reconciliation bill passed by the House could cut off public access for recreation and deny the states billions of dollars in mineral royalties.

The bill could potentially affect 7,000 mining claims on federally managed land in Colorado.

The letter states the House bill would net only $158 million over five years, while current royalties yield more than $2 billion a year, split between the federal government and the states.

The letter was signed by Govs. Brian Schweitzer of Montana, Janet Napolitano of Arizona, Bill Richardson of New Mexico, Ted Kulongoski of Oregon, and Christine Gregoire of Washington.

All are Democrats.

The House bill, which would deed lands used for hard-rock mining to private ownership rather than leaving the ground in public ownership as it now does, was sponsored by Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., and set off a firestorm of criticism.

Environmental groups and sportsmen, in particular, say it is a land grab that will privatize much of the lands owned by the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, and possibly even spill into national parks, monuments and wildlife refuges as well.

"What I want to know is why Gov. Owens didn't sign the letter that could have a major impact on hunting, fishing and other recreations in Colorado," Steve Torbit of the National Wildlife Federation said Friday.

"And they would end up owning the land."

Mark Salley, spokesman for Republican Colorado Gov. Bill Owens who was attending a conference in California on Friday, said Colorado doesn't have a position on Pombo's bill.

"Also, Gov. Owens doesn't customarily join in signing group letters," he said.

The proposed legislation concerns hard rock mining only. That would be for precious ores or uranium, but not coal or liquid minerals like natural gas or oil.

However, Kate Zimmerman of the National Wildlife Federation says once the surface land is patented (deeded), the owner could extract any and all minerals, hard rock or liquid, from the property.

"If they dug for gold and happened to hit oil or natural gas, the property would be theirs and they'd have the right to anything found under the surface clear to the center of the Earth," she said.

There are more than 210,000 active mining claims nationally on lands managed by the BLM, Forest Service and National Park Service, according to Vaughn Whatley, spokesman for the Colorado office of the BLM.

"While Colorado public lands contain 7,000 hard rock mining claims, 95 percent are for prospecting and exploration with very little, if any, production occurring on public lands," Whatley said.

"Most mining in Colorado is on private lands."

Miners pay a $30 location fee for new claims and an annual maintenance fee of $125 per claim.

The federal government, however, retains ownership of the land.

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