BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

Comment: Is this our Virginia's Future?

COTTAGE COUNTRY / MINING V. RECREATION

Cottagers returning to their retreats this weekend may be surprised to find that they don't own the mineral rights to their properties, Allan Britnell reports, and someone else has staked a claim, leaving them ...

ALLAN BRITNELL

Special to The Globe and Mail

May 15, 2009

It was two years ago that Robin Simpson spotted some damage to the trees lining his property near Gooderham, Ont., in the rolling Haliburton Highlands. "They'd slashed the sides of trees in a line every 400 feet," Mr. Simpson says.

Following the marked trail he eventually came to a tree that had been cut off about four feet above ground. Attached to it was an aluminum tag issued by the provincial Ministry of Northern Development and Mines. It was the first hint that a prospector had been on his property, unannounced and uninvited, to stake a mining claim on the land. Later, digging through the MNDM website, he discovered that his property - and thousands of acres of surrounding Crown and private land - had been staked for a potential open-pit uranium mine.

It's entirely possible that cottagers returning to their lakeside retreats this weekend could make a similar discovery. A small percentage of landowners in Ontario, including Mr. Simpson, only own the "surface rights" to their property, while the Crown retains the below-ground "mineral rights." (The separation of surface and mineral rights is "fairly common" from the Maritimes to British Columbia, says Ramsey Hart of MiningWatch Canada.

In Ontario, landowners can check for any claims on their property on the CLAIMaps at the MNDM website.) As a result, anyone who has paid $25.50 for a prospector's licence is free to enter those lands and mark off old-fashioned mining claims.

The provincial government estimates that only 1.4 per cent of all the land in Southern Ontario is "surface rights only."

CAN SCIENCE SAVE THE OIL SANDS?

But there are thousands of hectares of unprotected Crown land surrounding cottage communities throughout the province, and the country, that could potentially be turned into working mines.

After decades of complaints from cottagers and rural residents, environmental groups and native communities, last year the MNDM began holding consultations on modernizing the 141-year-old Mining Act. The result, Bill 173, the Mining Amendment Act, is currently working its way through the legislature.

One immediate result was that on April 30, the MNDM temporarily withdrew lands where owners held only the surface rights from potential prospecting anywhere south of Lake Nipissing and the French and Mattawa rivers.

For surface-rights holders north of that boundary, including Lake of the Woods, the status quo remains. The order also grandfathered any claims already staked. Still, Bill 173 falls far short of what anti-mining activists had hoped for.

"We're not very happy, to be honest," says Mr. Simpson, who participated in stakeholder meetings on Mining Act reform. "We're asking that Crown land be taken off the map in Southern Ontario."

Ted Spence, a director with the Federation of Ontario Cottagers' Associations, agrees. "The biggest threat to cottagers is that the Crown land that surrounds them is completely vulnerable to mining."

Currently, once a claim has been staked, a mining company could start exploration work with as little as 24 hours notice, and no environmental assessment is required.

That work can be devastating to the landscape. "They can remove up to 1,000 tonnes of material. That's a lot of earth and rock," says Mary Loucks, who's been fighting a proposed graphite mine on and around her 400-acre Long Pond Lake property, near Westport, Ont., since 1992.

After seeing the results of other nearby exploration work - "it looked like the trenches in France during the First World War" - she and her late husband, Don, helped form Bedford Mining Alert, a lobby group.

"It's even more destructive than clear-cutting," says Susanne Lauten, who became so incensed when she learned about the possibility of a uranium mine opening up less than 20 kilometres from her Gull Lake cottage, she started up Cottagers Against Uranium Mining and Exploration. "At least with clear-cutting you can plant trees. With open-pit mining that land is gone. All you're left with is a gaping hole."

On the other hand, without mining, industry advocates argue, there are lot of other things we'd be left without. "If you ban mining in Southern Ontario, you won't have any materials to build your roads, or make bricks or concrete," says Garry Clark, executive director of the Ontario Prospectors Association. "You won't have any salt for highways in the winter. Mining's an integral part of society."

Ultimately, the issue comes down to a battle between competing multibillion-dollar industries: mining, and tourism and recreation. "In Southern Ontario, the economy has shifted entirely away from mining and forestry to tourism," Mr. Spence says. With the economy tailing off, prices for minerals have dropped significantly, putting many potential operations on indefinite hold. (The contact number and e-mail for Bancroft Uranium Inc., the company that controls mining rights to 9,000 acres in and around Mr. Simpson's property, for example, are out of service.) But when prices start to rise again, so will interest in mining.

"Mining is still a very powerful sector, even under the proposed act. We have to be fairly watchful throughout the regulation stage. A lot can happen," Mr. Spence says.

In the meantime, cottagers should keep a close eye on their back forty, and look to others for help if they discover miners on their doorstep. (Ms. Lauten's group is holding an anti-uranium mining rally at Queen's Park in Toronto on Sept. 27.)

Several months after the area around Lyn Sparling's Mellon Lake cottage, near Kaladar, Ont., had been presumably protected as a Conservation Reserve, she literally felt the first rumblings of exploration work on a granite deposit.

It took her group, No Quarry @ Mellon Lake, six years to convince the government to deny the mining company, Palu-Corbelli Corp., a permit on environmental grounds. "We are, of course, very happy with the outcome of the Mellon Lake quarry battle," Ms. Sparling says. "But just as important to us is the example we set for others. A small group of determined and dedicated people can make a difference."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090515.LMINING15ART1631/TPStory/Environment

Oklahoma needs millions to fix mines

Comment: Remember, just replace the coal with Uranium, States all over America rarely or slowly reclaim the land, only a few have been reclaimed, if you call it that, still looks awful and not normal!!

Abandoned coal sites contain dangers such as sinkholes, pits and contaminated water

BY GAVIN OFF - Tulsa World
Published: May 10, 2009

Subtle hints give away the history of Bernie Woytas’ rural Rogers County property.

The hills cut rather than roll. Black rock covers the ground.

And steep banks corral surrounding waterways.

Most of Woytas’ 88 acres off County Road 4070 sit on an abandoned coal mine.

Although trees and thick brush have hidden much of the remains, the mine left 25-foot-high banks along its former pits, which have since become lakes.

Woytas said the slopes are dangerous and he is hoping the Oklahoma Conservation Commission will add his property to its list of future reclamation projects.

For years, the Conservation Commission, backed by federal dollars, has worked to reclaim abandoned coal mines.

So far, the state has restored more than 5,600 acres at a cost of more than $30 million, according to a database from the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement.

Reclamation targets dangerous areas, such as high banks, sinkholes, vertical openings and contaminated water.

But with more than 360 mines and more than 700 problem areas in eastern Oklahoma, it’s possible the state will never restore all its dangerous mines, said Mike Kastl, director of the Conservation Commission’s abandoned mine lands program.

According to the Conservation Commission, 25 people have died at abandoned mines since the early 1970s. Most drowned after falling into water-filled pits where miners once dug for coal.

Others died from injuries after falling into pits not filled with water.

"And these are just the ones we know about,” Kastl said.


Funding’s scarce

Oklahoma needs more than $91 million to reclaim abandoned coal mines that could threaten a person’s health or safety, a Tulsa World analysis found.
The state needs an additional $52.6 million to reclaim mines that pose environmental threats only.

"We’ve done a lot of good, but gosh it’s a shame we can’t get more funding,” Kastl said.

The federal government awards reclamation funds based largely on how much coal a state produces. Currently, Oklahoma has fewer than 10 operating mines that produce about 1.5 million tons a year, a state Mines Department official said. That’s a fraction of what some states, such as Wyoming and West Virginia, produce.

But Oklahoma does have a wealth of abandoned mines that were dug before the 1970s, when laws began to require that mining companies restore the land. Those mines do not contribute to the abandoned mine lands funding program.

Kastl said Oklahoma received $1.8 million for reclamation projects this year.

That number is scheduled to increase to $2.3 million in 2010 and to $3 million in 2012.


Problems persist

Limited funding means more potential problems, said Dan Trout, with the Office of Surface Mining’s Tulsa office.

"The hazards will just hang around that much longer,” Trout said.

"And the longer they’re there, the higher the opportunity is for somebody to get hurt.”

Highwalls — the embankments leading to mining pits — are the most common problem at Oklahoma’s abandoned mines, data show. There are 280 highwalls in the state, followed by 255 dangerous bodies of water and 92 cases of subsidence.

Kastl said the state uses its limited funds to target potentially dangerous mines that are close to homes or areas where people frequently visit.

That’s why Woytas is hoping the state soon adds his property to the reclamation list. Woytas said he’s concerned a slip down a bank on his land could turn deadly.

"It’s a major concern,” he said

Jacque Bronson, also a Rogers County resident, said she, too, is afraid of someone getting hurt on her property.

Bronson said she doesn’t allow her children near the highwall, which rises about 30 or 40 feet above a water-filled pit.

"I just worry that they’ll get curious and not do what Mom says.”

http://newsok.com/state-needs-millions-to-fix-mines/article/3368202