Hardrock Mining: Information on Abandoned Mines and Value and Coverage of Financial Assurances on BLM Land
Released: 2008-03-12T00:00:00

Letter

Background

Historically, the mining of hardrock minerals, such as gold, lead, copper, silver, and uranium, was an economic incentive for exploring and settling the American West. However, when the ore was depleted, miners often left behind a legacy of abandoned mines, structures, safety hazards, and contaminated land and water. Even in more recent times, after cleanup became mandatory, many parties responsible for hardrock mining sites have been liquidated through bankruptcy or otherwise dissolved. Under these circumstances, some hardrock mining companies have left it to the taxpayer to clean up the mining site. BLM, the Forest Service, EPA, and OSM play a role in cleaning up these abandoned mining sites and ensuring that currently operating sites are reclaimed after operations have ceased.

BLM and the Forest Service are responsible for managing more than 450 million acres of public lands in their care, including land disturbed and abandoned by past hardrock mining activities. BLM manages about 258 million acres in 12 western states, including Alaska. The Forest Service manages about 193 million acres across the nation. In 1997, BLM and the Forest Service each launched a national Abandoned Mine Lands Program to remedy the physical and environmental hazards at thousands of abandoned hardrock mines on the federal lands they manage. According to a September 2007 report by these two agencies, they had inventoried thousands of abandoned sites and, at many of them, had taken actions to clean up hazardous substances and mitigate safety hazards.

BLM and the Forest Service are also responsible for managing and overseeing current hardrock operations on their lands, including the mining operators’ reclamation of the land disturbed by hardrock mining. Although reclamation can vary by location, it generally involves such activities as regrading and reshaping the disturbed land to conform with adjacent land forms and to minimize erosion; removing or stabilizing buildings and other structures to reduce safety risks; removing mining roads to prevent damage from future traffic; and establishing self- sustaining vegetation. One of the agencies’ key responsibilities is to ensure that adequate financial assurances, based on sound reclamation plans and cost estimates, are in place to guarantee reclamation costs. If a mining operator fails to complete required reclamation, BLM or the Forest Service can take steps to obtain funds from the financial assurance provider to complete the reclamation.

BLM requires financial assurances for both notice-level hardrock mining operations—those disturbing 5 acres of land or less—and plan-level hardrock mining operations—those disturbing over 5 acres of land and those in certain designated areas, such as the national wild and scenic rivers system. For hardrock operations on Forest Service lands, agency regulations require reclamation of sites after operations cease, but do not require financial assurances for the reclamation. However, according to a Forest Service official, if the proposed hardrock operation is likely to cause a significant disturbance, the Forest Service requires financial assurances.

Both agencies allow several types of financial assurances to guarantee estimated reclamation costs for hardrock operations on their lands. According to regulations and agency officials, BLM and the Forest Service allow cash, letters of credit, certificates of deposit or savings accounts, and negotiable U.S. securities and bonds in a trust account. BLM also allows surety bonds, state bond pools, trust funds, and property.

Neither agency centrally tracks all the types of financial assurances in place for hardrock operations on its lands. BLM’s LR2000 tracks most of the types, and BLM is updating the database to include more types of financial assurances, but data are incomplete for the types of assurances currently in the system. The Forest Service does not have readily available information on the types of financial assurances in use, but it is developing a database to collect this and other information on hardrock operations by late summer 2008, according to Forest Service officials.

EPA administers the Superfund program, which was established under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 to address the threats that contaminated waste sites, including those on nonfederal lands, pose to human health and the environment. The act also requires that the parties statutorily responsible for pollution bear the cost of cleaning up contaminated sites, including abandoned hardrock mining operations. Some contaminated hardrock mine sites have been listed on Superfund’s National Priorities List—a list of seriously contaminated sites. Typically, these sites are expensive to clean up and the cleanup can take many years. According to EPA’s Office of Inspector General in 2004, 63 hardrock mining sites were on the National Priorities List and another 93 sites had the potential to be added to the list. Regarding financial assurances, EPA has statutory authority under the Superfund program to require businesses handling hazardous substances on nonfederal lands to provide financial assurances, and according to agency officials, is currently exploring options for implementing this authority.

OSM’s Abandoned Mine Land Program primarily focuses on cleaning up abandoned coal mine sites. However, OSM, under amendments to the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) of 1977, can provide grants to fund the cleanup and reclamation of certain hardrock mining sites either (1) after a state certifies that it has cleaned up its abandoned coal mine sites and the Secretary of the Interior approves the certification, or (2) at the request of a state or Indian tribe to address problems that could endanger life and property, constitute a hazard to the public and safety, or degrade the environment, and the Secretary of the Interior grants the request. OSM has provided more than $3 billion to clean up dangerous abandoned mine sites. Its Abandoned Mine Land Program has eliminated safety and environmental hazards on 314,108 acres since 1977, including all high-priority coal problems and non-coal problems in 27 states and on the lands of three Indian tribes.

Federal Agencies Have Spent At Least $2.6 Billion to Clean Up Abandoned Hardrock Mine Sites Since 1998

Between fiscal years 1998 and 2007, the four federal agencies we examined—BLM, the Forest Service, EPA, and OSM—spent at least $2.6 billion to reclaim abandoned hardrock mines on federal, state, private, and Indian lands. EPA has spent the most—$2.2 billion. Although the amount each agency spent annually varied considerably, the median amount spent for the public lands by BLM and the Forest Service was about $5 million and about $21 million, respectively. EPA spent substantially more—a median of about $221 million annually—to clean up mines that are generally on nonfederal lands. Finally, OSM provided grants with an annual median value of about $18 million to states and Indian tribes through its SMCRA program for hardrock mine cleanups. Table 1 summarizes information on expenditures and hardrock mine cleanup activities at BLM, the Forest Service, EPA, and OSM. See appendix II for more detailed information on agency expenditures by fiscal year.

According to available data, as of September 30, 2007, BLM had spent the largest share of its funds in Montana—about $18 million; EPA had spent the largest share of its funds in Idaho—about $352 million; and Wyoming was the largest recipient of OSM grants for cleaning up hardrock mine sites—receiving about $99 million. Wyoming was eligible for OSM grants after OSM’s acceptance of the state’s certification that it had completed its cleanup of coal mine sites. The Forest Service was unable to provide this information by state. See appendix II for BLM, EPA, and OSM total funding by state.

Prior State Estimates of the Number of Abandoned Hardrock Mine Sites Vary Widely, but Our Data Show at Least 161,000 Sites, with Many Posing Hazards

Previous state estimates of the number of abandoned hardrock mine sites vary widely in the six studies that we reviewed because, in part, there is no generally accepted definition for a hardrock mine site and the studies rely on the states’ different definitions of hardrock mine sites. In addition, we found problems with BLM’s and the Forest Service’s estimate of 100,000 abandoned hardrock mines on their lands because the agencies included non-hardrock mines and mines that may not be on their lands. Using our consistent definition, 12 western states and Alaska estimated a total of at least 161,000 abandoned hardrock mine sites in their states on state, private, or federal lands.

Six Studies Identified a Range of Estimated Abandoned Hardrock Mining Sites

We identified six studies conducted in the past 10 years that estimated the number of abandoned hardrock mine sites in the 12 western states and Alaska. The estimates in each of these studies were developed by asking states to provide data on the number of abandoned hardrock mine sites in their states, generally without regard to whether the mine was on federal, state, Indian, or private lands. The estimates for a particular state do, in some cases, vary widely from study to study. For example, for Nevada, the Western Governors’ Association/National Mining Association estimated that the state had 50,000 abandoned hardrock mine sites in 1998, while in 2004 EPA estimated that the state had between 200,000 to 500,000 abandoned sites. The estimates also reflect the different definitions that states used for abandoned hardrock mining sites for a given study. For example, we found that, within the same study, some states define an abandoned mine site as a mine opening or feature, while others define a site as all associated mine openings, features, or structures at a distinct location. As a result, an abandoned hardrock operation with two mine openings, a pit, and a tailings pile could be listed as one site or four sites, depending on the definitions and methodologies used. See appendix III for more information on estimates from these studies.

In addition, some regional or state estimates included coal and other non- hardrock mineral sites because it was (1) not important to distinguish between the type of minerals mined or (2) difficult to determine what mineral had been mined. In 2004, EPA commented on this problem, noting, “it is important to keep in mind that a universally applied definition of an does not exist at present…therefore, the various agencies and state-developed…inventories presented may possess inconsistencies and are not intended for exact quantitative comparisons.”

BLM and Forest Service Estimates of Abandoned Hardrock Mines Include Non-Hardrock Mines and Mines That May Not Be on Their Lands.

BLM and the Forest Service have also had difficulty determining the number of abandoned hardrock mines on their lands and have no definitive estimates. In September 2007, the agencies reported that there were an estimated 100,000 abandoned hardrock mine sites, but we found problems with this estimate. For example, the Forest Service had reported that it had approximately 39,000 abandoned hardrock mine sites on its lands. However, we found that this estimate includes a substantial number of non-hardrock mines, such as coal mines, and sites that are not on Forest Service land. At our request, in November 2007, the Forest Service provided a revised estimate of the number of abandoned hardrock mine sites on its lands, excluding coal or other non-hardrock sites. According to this estimate, the Forest Service may have about 29,000 abandoned hardrock mine sites on its lands. That said, we still have concerns about the accuracy of the Forest Service’s recent estimate because it includes a large number of sites on lands with “undetermined” ownership, and therefore these sites may not all be on Forest Service lands.

BLM has also acknowledged that its estimate of abandoned hardrock mine sites on its lands may not be accurate because it includes sites on lands that are of unknown or mixed ownership (state, private, and federal) and a few coal sites. In addition, BLM officials said that the agency’s field offices used a variety of methods to identify sites in the early 1980s, and the extent and quality of these efforts varied greatly. For example, they estimated that only about 20 percent of BLM land has been surveyed in Arizona. Furthermore, BLM officials said that the agency focuses more on identifying sites closer to human habitation and recreational areas than on identifying more remote sites, such as in the desert. Table 2 shows the Forest Service’s and BLM’s most recent available estimates of abandoned mine sites on their lands.

Using a Consistent Definition, GAO Estimated at Least 161,000 Abandoned Sites

To estimate abandoned hardrock mining sites in the 12 western states and Alaska, we developed a standard definition for these mine sites. In developing this definition, we consulted with mining experts at the National Association of Abandoned Mine Land Programs; the Interstate Mining Compact Commission; and the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety, Office of Active and Inactive Mines. We defined an abandoned hardrock mine site as a site that includes all associated facilities, structures, improvements, and disturbances at a distinct location associated with activities to support a past operation, including prospecting, exploration, uncovering, drilling, discovery, mine development, excavation, extraction, or processing of mineral deposits locatable under the general mining laws. We also asked the states to estimate the number of features at these sites that pose physical safety hazards and the number of sites with environmental degradation. See appendix I for the complete definition we used when asking states for their estimates.

Using this definition, states reported to us the number of abandoned sites in their states, and we estimated that there are at least 161,000 abandoned hardrock mine sites in their states. At these sites, on the basis of state data, we estimated that at least 332,000 features may pose physical safety hazards, such as open shafts or unstable or decayed mine structures; and at least 33,000 sites have degraded the environment, by, for example, contaminating surface water and groundwater or leaving arsenic- contaminated tailings piles. Table 3 shows our estimate of the number of abandoned hardrock mine sites in the 12 western states and Alaska, the number of features that pose significant public health and safety hazards, and the number of sites with environmental degradation.

While states used our definition to provide data on the estimated number of mine sites and features, these data have two key limitations. First, the methods and sources used to identify and confirm abandoned sites and hazardous features vary substantially by state. For example, some states, such as Colorado and Wyoming, indicated they had done extensive and rigorous fieldwork to identify sites and were reasonably confident that their estimates were accurate. Other states, however, relied less on rigorous fieldwork, and more on unverified, readily available records or data sources, such as published or unpublished geological reports, mining claim maps, and the Mineral Availability System/Mineral Industry Locator System (MAS/MILS), which states indicated were typically incomplete. Several of those states that relied primarily on literature used the literature only as a starting point, and then estimated the number of features on the basis of experience. For example, while one state estimated that there were about three times the number of public safety hazards as identified by the literature, another state estimated that there were four times as many, and a third state estimated that there were up to six times as many.

Second, because states have markedly different data systems and requirements for recording data on abandoned mines, some states were less readily able to provide the data directly from their systems without manipulation or estimation. For example, New Mexico estimated the number of abandoned mine sites from the data it maintains on hazardous features, and Nevada estimated the number of abandoned hardrock mine sites from the data it maintains on the number of mining districts in the state.

BLM Estimates That Operators Have Provided About $982 Million in Financial Assurances—About $61 Million Less Than Needed to Cover Estimated Reclamation Costs

As of November 2007, hardrock mining operators had provided financial assurances valued at approximately $982 million to guarantee the reclamation costs for 1,463 hardrock mining operations on BLM lands in 11 western states, according to BLM’s Bond Review Report. The report also indicates that 52 of the 1,463 hardrock mining operations had inadequate financial assurances—about $28 million less than needed to fully cover estimated reclamation costs. We determined, however, that the financial assurances for these 52 operations should be more accurately reported as about $61 million less than needed to fully cover estimated reclamation costs. Table 4 shows total hardrock mining operations by state, the number of operations with inadequate financial assurances, the financial assurances required, BLM’s calculation of the shortfall in assurances, and our estimate of the shortfall, as of November 2007.

The $33 million difference between our estimated shortfall of nearly $61 million and BLM’s estimated shortfall of nearly $28 million occurs because BLM calculated its shortfall by comparing the total value of financial assurances in place with the total estimated reclamation costs. This calculation approach has the effect of offsetting the shortfalls in some operations with the financial assurances of other operations. However, the financial assurances that are greater than the amount required for an operation cannot be transferred to an operation with inadequate financial assurances. In contrast, we totaled the difference between the financial assurance in place for an operation and the financial assurances needed for that operation to determine the actual shortfall for each of the 52 operations for which BLM had determined that financial assurances were inadequate.

BLM’s approach to determining the adequacy of financial assurances is not useful because it does not clearly lay out the extent to which financial assurances are inadequate. For example, in California, BLM reports that, statewide, the financial assurances in place are $1.5 million greater than required, suggesting reclamation costs are being more than fully covered. However, according to our analysis of only those California operations with inadequate financial assurances, the financial assurances in place are nearly $440,000 less than needed to fully cover reclamations costs. BLM officials agreed that it would be valuable for the Bond Review Report to report the dollar value of the difference between financial assurances in place and required for those operations where financial assurances are inadequate and have taken steps to modify LR2000.

BLM officials said that financial assurances may appear inadequate in the Bond Review Report when expansions or other changes in the operation have occurred, thus requiring an increase in the amount of the financial assurance; BLM’s estimate of reclamation costs has increased and there is a delay between when BLM enters the new estimate into LR2000 and when the operator provides the additional bond amount; and BLM has delayed updating its case records in LR2000.

Conversely, hardrock mining operators may have financial assurances greater than required for a number of reasons; for example, they may increase their financial assurances because they anticipate expanding their hardrock operations.

In addition, according to the Bond Review Report, there are about 2.4 times as many notice-level operations—operations that cause surface disturbance on 5 acres or less—as there are plan-level operations on BLM land—operations that disturb more than 5 acres (1,033 notice-level operations and 430 plan-level operations). However, about 99 percent of the value of financial assurances is for plan-level operations, while 1 percent of the value is for notice-level operations. While financial assurances were inadequate for both notice- and plan-level operations, a greater percentage of plan-level operations had inadequate financial assurances than did notice-level operations—6.7 percent and 2.2 percent, respectively. Finally, over one-third of the number of all hardrock operations and about 84 percent of the value of all financial assurances are for hardrock mining operations located in Nevada. See appendix IV for further details on the number of plan- and notice-level operations in each state.

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be happy to respond to any questions that you or Members of the Committee may have.

Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this testimony. For further information about this testimony, please contact Robin M. Nazzaro, Director, Natural Resources and Environment (202) 512-3841 or nazzaror@gao.gov. Key contributors to this testimony were Andrea Wamstad Brown (Assistant Director); Casey L. Brown; Kristen Sullivan Massey; Rebecca Shea; and Carol Herrnstadt Shulman.

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

To determine the (1) federal funds spent to clean up abandoned hardrock mine sites since 1998, (2) number of abandoned hardrock mine sites and the number of associated hazards, and (3) value and coverage of the financial assurances operators use to guarantee reclamation costs on the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land, we interviewed officials at the BLM, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Department of the Interior’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM); examined agency documents and data; and reviewed relevant legislation and regulations.

Specifically, to answer our first objective, we interviewed officials involved with the abandoned mine cleanup programs at BLM, the Forest Service, EPA, and OSM to request expenditure data, to understand how they tracked and monitored expenditures to clean up abandoned hardrock mines, and to request and ensure that we would receive the data we needed. We reviewed agency documents, budget justification reports and reports detailing agencies’ cleanup efforts and programs. We obtained data on total expenditures for cleaning up and reclaiming abandoned hardrock mine sites that were compiled from BLM’s Financial Accounting and Reporting System, EPA’s Superfund eFacts Database, OSM’s Abandoned Mine Land Inventory System, and Forest Service officials. BLM officials told us that in addition to the expenditure data they provided, the agency receives funding allocations from other sources, such as the Department of the Interior’s Central Hazardous Materials fund. Since BLM does not track the expenditures from these other sources, we were unable to provide this information.

Because the four agencies’ abandoned hardrock mine programs started in different years, start years for expenditure data vary. Specifically, BLM’s data were for fiscal years 1997 through 2007; Forest Service’s data, for fiscal years 1996 through 2007; EPA’s data, for fiscal years 1988 through 2007; and OSM’s data, for fiscal years 1993 to 2007. We performed a limited reliability assessment of the expenditure data and determined that we would limit our year-by-year presentation of expenditure data to the past 10 years (1998 through 2007) because of (1) variability in the program start year across the agencies, (2) inconsistencies across the agencies in their methods for tracking and reporting the data, and (3) some data recording errors in early years at some agencies. We presented these data in 2008 constant dollars.

Because of limited time in preparing this testimony, we were unable to fully assess the reliability of the agencies’ expenditure data and the data are therefore of undetermined reliability. However, we concluded that the data are appropriate as used and presented to meet our objectives because we (1) attribute the data to what agencies report as their expenditures, (2) present rounded data to minimize the perception of precision, and (3) do not base any conclusions or recommendations on the data.

To answer our second objective, we summarized selected prior survey efforts by federal agencies and organizations to document differences in estimates, definitions, and methodologies. We also consulted experts in mining and abandoned mine land programs at the National Association of Abandoned Mine Land Programs; the Interstate Mining Compact Commission; and the Colorado State Department of Natural Resources, Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety, Office of Active and Inactive Mines to develop a standard definition for estimating the number of abandoned hardrock mine sites, features, and sites with environmental degradation. Other efforts to assess the magnitude of the abandoned mine situation have acknowledged limitations in their efforts to develop a nationwide estimate because of inconsistencies in states’ definitions and methods for estimating abandoned sites. Consequently, through iterative consultation with state and other mining experts, the definition we ultimately chose was clear and incorporated enough flexibility for all major hardrock mining states—the 12 western states and Alaska—to reasonably comply with our request, despite differences in how the states might define and maintain abandoned mine data. We then provided states with an edit-controlled data collection instrument that requested data specifically tailored to our definitions and methods. Our definition of abandoned hardrock mine sites includes all associated facilities, structures, improvements, and disturbances at a distinct location associated with activities to support a past operation, including prospecting, exploration, uncovering, drilling, discovery, mine development, excavation, extraction, or processing of mineral deposits locatable under the general mining laws; can range from an isolated prospect shaft and its associated waste rock pile and adjacent prospect pits, to a complex site with multiple entries, shafts, open pits, mill buildings, waste rock piles, a tailings pond, and associated environmental problems; and includes only hardrock (also known as locatable), non-coal sites.

Features that pose a significant hazard to public health and safety include features, such as mine openings, structures, and highwalls; and impoundments that pose a threat to public health and safety and require actions to secure, remedy or reclaim.

Sites with environmental degradation include features that lead to environmental degradation, and, consequently, require remediation of air, water, or ground pollution.

Rather than reporting, as requested, the number of features leading to environmental degradation, most states reported only the number of sites with environmental degradation, if they reported data for this request at all. Because most states do not maintain environmental degradation data by feature, states could only speculate about this figure, or compute it by estimating an average number of features per site and multiplying that by the overall number of sites with environmental degradation. Because of these limitations with feature-level data, we report only the number of sites with data on environmental degradation in order to ensure more reliable and consistent reporting across the states.

As a secondary confirmation that states provided data consistent with the definition, our data collection instrument included a section for states to provide a brief description of how the various data points were calculated, and whether the data provided were actual or estimated values. Based on comments in these fields, and basic logic checks on the data, we followed up as needed through telephone interviews to clarify and confirm problematic responses. Our definitional and editing processes provided us with reasonable assurance that the data were as clean and consistent as possible, and using these final edited data, we calculated the estimated number of abandoned mine sites, the number of features that pose physical safety and environmental hazards, and the number of abandoned mine sites with environmental degradation in the 12 western states and Alaska.

To answer our third objective—to determine the value and coverage of financial assurances in place to guarantee coverage of reclamation costs— we requested the BLM Bond Review Report from BLM’s Legacy Rehost System 2000 (LR2000) database. Because we had previously reported reliability problems with data on financial assurances in LR2000, we conducted a limited reliability assessment of the bond report data. This limited assessment included (1) basic logic checks on the data we received, (2) interviews with BLM minerals management officials knowledgeable of the changes made to LR2000 to address GAO’s 2005 recommendations, and (3) a review of BLM’s June 14, 2006, Instruction Memorandum 2006-172 for processing and entering Bond Review Report data in LR2000. Although the data are of undetermined reliability, our limited assessment indicates that management controls were improved for the generation of bond review reports from LR2000. We concluded that the data are appropriate as used and presented, and we did not base any conclusions or recommendations on these data.

Appendix II: Information on Federal Agency Expenditures to Clean Up Abandoned Hardrock Mines

This appendix provides information on federal expenditures used to clean up abandoned hardrock mines by fiscal year (table 5) and by state (table 6).

Appendix III: Estimated Number of Abandoned Mine Sites, According to Selected Studies, 1998 to 2007

Range of estimated abandoned mines previously (2001) (2007)

Mineral Policy Center (2003)

Earthworks (formerly Mineral Policy Center) (2007) (2004) “openings”

No data provided Western Governors’ Association and National Mining Association, Cleaning Up Abandoned Mines: A Western Partnership, 1998.

Appendix IV: Information on BLM Financial Assurances and Their Adequacy to Cover Estimated Reclamation Costs

This appendix provides information from BLM’s November 2007 Bond Review Report, which includes information on the number of financial assurances in place for hardrock operations on BLM lands in 11 western states (table 7); the value of these financial assurances by state (table 8); the number of inadequate financial assurances for notice- and plan-level operations, by state (table 9); and BLM’s and our analyses of the differences between financial assurance requirements and actual value of financial assurances in place for notice- and plan-level operations by state (table 10).