Mine, mine, mine, it's all mine, no reclamation.
District judge says Montana gold mine must be reclaimed

Under the heading "Montana has more mountains than brains" a district judge tells the state to get smart and follow the state constitution and reclamation laws. The gold mine company and the state were sued by environmental groups for destroying a mountain top and leaving a big pit in its place. The judge said the law comes first, making a profit comes second. In this case the mountain wasn't even a close third.

An article in the Billings Gazette reported the mine manager said, "This mine wouldn't have opened back in 1982 had we known we were going to have to backfill the open pit. I can't imagine any mine starting up in Montana or in the nation with this backfilling requirement." This is as good a reason as any to rethink our strategy on the environment and fund it up front with tax dollars. (See related story).

Environmentalists won this round but did they really win? During the time it has taken to fight in court we have lost a mountain. The mine company could go bankrupt and not reclaim the mountain (or pit, depending on whether you're an optimist or a pessimist). It's happened before in Montana. The taxpayers end up with the bill and many times the problems are not funded, or super funded, even.

It's pretty hard to make a mountain out of a pit (all the King's horses and all the King's men line of thinking). Wouldn't it be better if the taxpayers knew what the costs of scrambled eggs were in advance back in the late 70's. They could have decided whether the clean up costs would be more than the amount made by the mine company selling the golden eggs and providing the jobs. They could also have decided whether it would be worth losing a mountain and gaining an ugly molehill for no economic net gain. They might have decided to cut millions of dollars from legal fees and just give the first 200 miners that show up the money. The state could have bought the mineral rights back (to their own national forest) for $23 million, which is the cost of the reclamation.

Today, they would still have their mountain and they would have more time to play on it instead of being in a hot, stuffy courtroom looking serious. All the miners would be a lot safer and some could still get drunk at the local bar and squander their money on lottery tickets - just as some do now.

It's up to us. Do we want to pay for our cherry mountains
or fight over the pits - and then pay?
e-mail jb@redfly.com.

Copyright 2000 by Jeffrey C. Baston, NCARB, AIA