Mining Companies Use Your Land for Free, and You Pay to Clean Up

Mining companies from around the world can mine gold on U.S. lands almost for free, and taxpayers have to pay to clean up the mess left behind.

That's the sorry state of affairs when it comes to regulating mining in the United States. We're still doing it the way President Ulysses Grant prescribed. Oil and gas companies pay royalties on the wealth they extract from the lands we collectively own, but not precious metal miners. We do, however, pay for the mess – 20 tons of polluted waste per gold ring, or about $50 billion for all U.S. mines, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Virtually every Democrat running for president has expressed support for reforming this law. More immediately, the House has passed an update to the 1872 mining law that allows this rampant pillaging of federal lands and tax coffers, but mining interests, according to the L.A. Times, are lining up support among our honorable leaders in the Senate, looking to block a measure that smacks in that unmistakable way that common sense does.

The top 10 polluting mines in the United States, as measured by total pounds of pollution reported in 2005, the latest year for which data is available, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, are (List may include mines on either private or public lands):

1. Red Dog Operations, Northwest Arctic, AK
2. Kennecott Utah Copper Mine Concentrators & Power Plant, Salt Lake, UT
3. Newmont Mining Corp. Twin Creeks Mine, Humboldt, NV
4. Newmont Mining Corp., Eureka, NV
5. Barrick Goldstrike Mines Inc., Elko, NV
6. Coeur Rochester Inc., Pershing, NV
7. Kennecott Greens Creek Mining Co., Juneau, AK
8. Phelps Dodge Miami Inc., Gila, AZ
9. Newmont Mining Corp, Lone Tree Mine, Humbolt, NV
10. Montana Resources LLP, Silver Bow, MT

For a complete list, use the EPA's Toxic Release Inventory.

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