Special Treatment Given for Mining? That’s Got to Stop

I stopped pedaling my bike and coasted down the hill before me. It was a rare dreary day, at least by southwestern Colorado standards. The air was still and somber, the Animas River Trail eerily quiet. At the bottom of the hill, a handful of people gathered at the Animas River’s bank. I pulled over and joined them.

We stared at the river in disbelief, hardly recognizing the waterway we paddled and surfed, floated in and fished out of. The familiar glassy rapids and greenish-blue water now glowed a ghastly yellow and orange.
Our beloved river had been poisoned.

Several hours prior, a massive toxic wastewater drainage from the abandoned Gold King Mine cascaded from high in the San Juan Mountains into the Animas River. An EPA-led cleanup inadvertently triggered the spill at the mine, which had not operated since 1922. The mustard-yellow spill traversed through multiple states, counties, towns and Tribal Nations, past Aztec Ruins National Monument and eventually into Lake Powell.

Life for thousands across these Western communities became miserable. Residents with wells within these floodplains were directed to test their water before using it for drinking and bathing. Farmers and ranchers on the Navajo Nation were forced to close irrigation canals and reduce water use, which led to crop loss and economic hardship. Ranchers were directed not to give the water to livestock, and recreation was impossible until the water cleared.

The 2015 Animas River Gold King Mine Spill drew national news media attention to toxic drainage from many similar abandoned mines around the country. The environmental disaster also served as a warning for what could come of the 38,000 abandoned and inactive hard rock mines inside national parks, just a portion of the nearly 500,000 on federal public lands across the country that sit like disasters waiting to happen to the American landscape and the livelihoods of nearby communities.

Many mines have significant drainage problems, which can persist for thousands of years if left untreated. But properly treating this waste takes an estimated $50 billion to clean up.

Yet the threats of hard rock mining development are rising. Increased interests to mine minerals used in batteries and renewable energy — as well as the Trump administration’s review of federal public land protections for possible mineral withdrawals and accelerated approvals without thorough environmental review — threaten to negatively impair park landscapes across the Colorado Plateau, including Canyonlands National Park and beyond in places like El Mapais National Monument and the California Desert. In northern Arizona, uranium mining has commenced inside the newly designated Baaj Nwavjo I’tah Kukveni National Monument, while in Alaska, the Johnson Tract mine has begun initial development within Lake Clark National Park.

This raises a big question: Why are industrial mining projects, which are so incompatible with the landscapes which they reside within, even being considered?

Practices based on 19th-century law

The short answer is that the mining industry gets special treatment. An outdated 1872 Mining Law is the main culprit. Most mine claims — parcels of land “staked” by private parties for possible development into future active mines — on public lands are governed under this law signed by President Ulysses S. Grant over 150 years ago to settle the West.

The law allows active mining claims, many decades to a century old, to be treated with “valid existing rights” despite being on public land owned by community members and taxpayers. Originally designed for the pick and shovel miner of the California gold rush, the law hands the responsibility of managing public lands over to companies looking to profit from them without providing for any fair return to the American taxpayer and with insufficient input from the local community and stakeholders.

That’s why Pinyon Plain Mine and other mines located on public lands are excluded from new protections and allowed to move forward, even within the boundaries of parks and monuments.

One out of every four mining claims in the U.S. is located within 30 miles of national parks and monuments.

Making matters worse, in the regulatory and legal process for managing public land, the mining industry gets to skip the line in front of every other user group. They get first choice of where a future mine could be sited, even if that location is at odds with the public interest.

While the mining industry tells us this special treatment is necessary because “the minerals are where they are,” this is not an argument made in good faith. It’s safe to say the timber industry would make the same argument about the biggest, most profitable trees, and mountain bikers would say the same about the best terrain for building trails.

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A map showing mining analysis from NPCA’s Conservation Science team. 123,788 active mining claims are within 30 miles of National parks and monuments, which represents 25% of all public lands mine claims nationwide. ©NPCA

Additionally, the mining regulatory framework has another leg up — the unfair advantage to site and explore first, then ask questions later. Other user groups are bound to a thought-out land management process where land managers are incentivized to create win-win solutions where land use is in balance with conserving and restoring the country’s shared resources.
This favoritism has to change, and any attempts to remove protections for our most special landscapes must be stopped.

Reform for the 21st century

There is no doubt that in the face of climate change, we must transition to clean energy. That future will require large amounts of minerals, such as lithium for energy storage, and will result in increased mining and processing on public lands.

But without first reforming the unfair mining laws, we face a grave future where our natural heritage is bulldozed along the way. NPCA’s Conservation Science team’s geospatial analysis shows that in the last five years, mining claims on public lands have increased by 30% and one out of every four claims in the U.S. is located within 30 miles of national parks and monuments.

Even worse, about 3,700 mining claims are located inside national park sites and monuments across the West. As interest in mining continues to climb, especially in light of the growing need for critical minerals, these places remain highly threatened by the inadequacies of our mining laws.

The natural world knows no borders. Industrial-scale mining would not only impact park visitor experience, but the negative spillover effects can cascade into the drinking water supply, air quality and recreation economies. As with the Animas River, the quality of life and economic livelihood of everyday residents are often the first to be compromised.

What NPCA is doing

NPCA has a long history of fighting poorly sited mining projects. Alongside our partners, NPCA has been fighting to protect parks and park landscapes from future mining, from the California desert to the Colorado Plateau.

Parallel to this place-based work, NPCA is fighting for widespread mining reform. In the short term, we need to hold industry financially accountable for the damage they cause and the value they extract for our public lands. Then, we must advocate for a fair process where land managers and the public have discretion over where mining occurs on public lands. Currently, NPCA is fighting to update the 1872 Mining Law to ensure that mines like Pinyon Plain are located, sited and regulated to ensure the conservation of the landscapes to which our parks belong.

NPCA is fighting across the board for science-informed policy reforms that ensure that the next generation of mines on public lands — from exploration to reclamation — don’t cross park boundaries in the process.

This story originally appeared in the spring 2025 issue of Science News, a publication of NPCA Science Advisory and Leadership Team.