BLM is responsible for managing approximately 261 million acres of public land, over 99 percent of which is located in 12 western states, including Alaska. Approximately 90 percent of this land is open to the public for hardrock mineral exploration and mining. Less than one-tenth of 1 percent of BLM land is affected by existing hardrock operations. Figure 1 shows the BLM land available for hardrock operations. Hardrock operations consist of three primary stages—exploration, mining, and mineral processing. Operators are responsible for reclaiming the land disturbed by such operations at the earliest economically and technically feasible time, if this land will not be further disturbed. Exploration involves prospecting and other steps to locate mineral deposits. Drilling is the most common exploration tool for identifying the extent, quantity, and quality of minerals within an area. The mining phase includes developing the mining infrastructure (water, power, buildings, and roads) and extracting the minerals. Mineral extraction generally entails drilling, blasting, and hauling ore from pit areas to processing areas. To process minerals, operators prepare the ore by crushing or grinding it to extract minerals. The material left after the minerals are extracted—tailings (a combination of fluid and rock particles)—is then disposed of, often in a nearby pile. In addition, some operators use a leaching process to recover microscopic hardrock minerals from heaps of crushed ore by percolating solvent (such as cyanide for gold and sulfuric acid for copper) through the heap of ore. Through this heap-leaching process, the minerals adhere to the solvent as it runs through the leach heap and into a collection pond. The mineral-laced solution is then taken from the collection pond to the processing facility, where the valuable minerals are separated from the solution for further refinement. Figure 2 provides an overview of the three stages of a hardrock operation using a heap-leaching process. At the earliest feasible time, operators are required to reclaim BLM land that will not be further disturbed to prevent or control on-site or off-site damage. Reclamation practices vary by type of operation and by applicable federal, state, and local requirements. However, reclamation generally involves resloping pit walls to minimize erosion, removing or stabilizing buildings and other structures to reduce safety risks, removing mining roads to prevent damage from future traffic, and capping and revegetating leach heaps, tailings, and waste rock piles to control erosion and minimize the potential for contamination of groundwater from acid rock drainage and other potential water pollution problems. Addressing potential water pollution problems may involve long-term monitoring and treatment. Reclamation costs for hardrock mining operations vary by type and size of operation. For example, the costs of plugging holes at an exploration site are usually minimal. Conversely, reclamation costs for large mining operations using leaching practices can be in the tens of millions of dollars. Hardrock operations on BLM land are regulated by federal and state laws. Under the General Mining Act of 1872 (Mining Act), an individual or corporation can establish a claim to any hardrock mineral on public land. Upon recording a mining claim with BLM, the claimant must pay an initial $25 location fee and a $100 maintenance fee annually per claim; the claimant is not required to pay royalties on any hardrock minerals extracted. The Mining Act was designed to encourage the settlement and development of the West; it was not designed to regulate the associated environmental effects of mining. The number of hardrock operations left abandoned throughout the West after operations ceased is not known but is estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands, many of which pose environmental, health, and safety risks. Until Congress passed the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA), development of hardrock minerals on public land remained largely unregulated. FLPMA states that the Secretary of the Interior shall take any action necessary to prevent “unnecessary or undue degradation” of public land. Under FLPMA, BLM has developed and revised regulations and issued policies to prevent unnecessary or undue degradation of BLM land from hardrock operations. BLM issued regulations that took effect in 1981 on how these operations were to be conducted. Named for their location in the Code of Federal Regulations, the “3809” regulations classify surface disturbance generated by hardrock operations into three categories: casual use, notice-level operations, and plan-level operations. For all three operation levels, the operator must prevent unnecessary and undue degradation and complete reclamation at the earliest feasible time. BLM issued the revised 3809 regulations, effective in part in January 2001 that, among other things, changed the definition of the types of operations, modified the reclamation requirements, and strengthened the financial assurance requirements. Table 1 describes each type of operation under both the old and new regulations. While the performance standards for reclamation under the 1981 and 2001 regulations remain the same, the 2001 regulations specifically identified the components involved in reclamation. For standards under both regulations, the operator of a notice- or plan-level operation must reclaim the disturbed land at the earliest time that is economically and technically feasible, except to the extent necessary to preserve evidence of the presence of minerals, by taking reasonable measures to prevent or control on-site and off-site damage to federal land. Reclamation must include the following actions: saving topsoil to be applied after reshaping disturbed areas; taking measures to control erosion, landslides, and water runoff; taking measures to isolate, remove, or control toxic materials; reshaping the area disturbed, applying the topsoil, and revegetating disturbed areas, where reasonably practicable; and rehabilitating fisheries and wildlife habitat. The 2001 regulations specified that, as applicable, reclamation components include: isolating, controlling, or removing acid-forming and deleterious regrading and reshaping the disturbed land to conform with adjacent landforms, facilitating revegetation, controlling drainage, and minimizing erosion; placing growth medium and establishing self-sustaining vegetation; removing or stabilizing buildings, structures, or other support facilities; plugging drill holes and closing underground workings; and providing for post-mining monitoring, maintenance, or treatment. The 2001 regulations also significantly strengthened the financial assurance requirements for hardrock mining operations. Under the 1981 regulations, BLM had the option of requiring an operator to obtain a bond or other financial assurances for plan-level hardrock operations and for notice-level operations where the operator had a record of noncompliance. However, BLM rarely exercised this option. In 1990, BLM instructed its officials to require operators of plan-level operations to provide (1) financial assurances of $1,000 per acre for exploration and $2,000 per acre for mining and (2) financial assurances for all estimated reclamation costs for operations that used leaching chemicals and for operators with a record of noncompliance. Under the 2001 regulations, BLM requires all notice- and plan-level hardrock operators to provide financial assurances that cover all estimated reclamation costs for all plan- and notice-level operations before exploration or mining operations begin. Casual-use operations do not have to provide financial assurances. The 2001 regulations amended the types of financial assurances that can be used. The 1981 regulations identified three types of acceptable financial assurances—bonds, cash, and negotiable U.S. securities. BLM could also accept evidence of an existing bond pursuant to state law or regulations if BLM determined that the coverage would be equivalent to the amount that would be required by BLM. Some operations used corporate guarantees, which were allowable under state laws and regulations. In contrast, the 2001 regulations prohibit the use of corporate guarantees for new operations and state that corporate guarantees currently in use under an approved BLM and state agreement cannot be increased or transferred. The 2001 regulations specify the following types of financial assurances as acceptable: surety bonds that meet the requirements of U.S. Treasury Circular 570; cash in an amount equal to the required dollar amount of the financial assurance and maintained in a federal depository account of the U.S. Treasury by BLM; irrevocable letters of credit from a bank or other financial institution organized or authorized to transact business in the United States; certificates of deposit or savings accounts not in excess of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s maximum insurable amount; negotiable U.S., state, and municipal securities or bonds with a market value of at least the required dollar amount of the financial assurance maintained in a Securities Investors Protection Corporation insured trust account by a licensed securities brokerage firm for the benefit of the Secretary of the Interior; investment-grade securities that (1) have a Standard and Poor’s rating of AAA or AA, or an equivalent rating from another nationally recognized securities rating service, (2) have a market value of at least the required dollar amount of the financial assurance, and (3) are maintained in a Securities Investors Protection Corporation insured trust account by a licensed securities brokerage firm for the benefit of the Secretary of the Interior; certain types of insurance underwritten by a company having an A.M. Best rating of “superior” or an equivalent rating from another nationally recognized insurance rating service; evidence of an existing financial assurance under state law or regulations, as long as the financial assurance is held or approved by the state agency for the same operations covered by the notice or plan of operation, has a value equal to the required amount, and is redeemable by BLM. These financial assurances can include any of the above instruments. In addition, they can include state bond pools, as well as corporate guarantees that existed on January 20, 2001, under an approved BLM and state agreement; or trust funds or other funding mechanisms available to BLM.