Andrus, An Old Foe, Defends Past Stands On Mining Former Interior Secretary Addresses Mining Convention

Comparing the environmental track record of the mining industry to “the good, the bad, and the ugly,” former Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus told Northwest Mining Association members they need to act responsibly and do a better job of trumpeting their successes.

Andrus’ keynote speech Tuesday, the second day of the group’s 103rd annual meeting in Spokane, packed the Ag Trade Center theater.

The crowd was attracted as much by shock value as interest in what the four-term former governor and Carter administration secretary of interior would say about mining.

Andrus rode into the governor’s office in 1970 as an opponent of an open pit molybdenum mine in the White Cloud Mountains of Idaho. He later opposed mining in the Alaska wilderness and raised industry ire by pushing through federal regulations for surface mining and offshore tract leasing rates.

“There was a time, not many years ago, when the only appearance I thought I would make before this group was to be hung in effigy,” Andrus said.

Defending his earlier stands, he said the regulations he adopted have withstood the test of time.

“Even though many of you thought they were evil and bad at the time, you’ve worked with them - and made them work,” he said. “Lots of people howled at the time, but those regulations revolutionized mining on the public lands.”

Andrus believes the current administration is tinkering with the rules unnecessarily, attempting to draft “national prescriptions for reclamation.”

“Now my old friend Bruce Babbitt - who should know better - is trying to fix things that aren’t broken,” Andrus said, adding that he suspects the current interior secretary is trying to accomplish mining law reform “through the back door,” under the auspices of “one-size-fits-all” regulation.

Any change in the regulations should be proposed by the Bureau of Land Management and evaluated by the industry and its critics before being implemented, he added.

Describing his presentation as “a little bit of praise, a little bit of advice, a little bit of caution,” Andrus congratulated the industry for its evolution from the “damn the cost; get the minerals out” techniques of the past to a “new day of environmental mining.”

Michele Nanni of the Inland Empire Public Lands Council attended Andrus’ address. From her perspective, that new day has not quite crested the horizon.

“Unfortunately, I think the bad and the ugly still outweigh the good at this point,” she said after Andrus’ speech. “He said the environmentalists only look at the sins of the past and don’t acknowledge the industry’s successes, but I think the mining industry is guilty of looking at the bit of success it has had and not acknowledging the problems.”

Nanni suggested the vision that things have changed in the mining trade has more to do with public relations than the public interest.

“We need a strong baseline of federal regulations,” she said. “The only reason mining practices have improved is because of regulations citizens have fought for.”

Outgoing Northwest Mining Association President Otto Schumacher, who also is president of Western Mine Engineering in Spokane, argued that mining’s critics have fixated on the past and remain uninformed about modern practices.

“The industry has grown right along with the rest of the country to recognize its environmental responsibility,” he said. He added that mining operations in earlier years were not unlike wastewater disposal systems in cities like Spokane and Coeur d’Alene, which once dumped raw sewage into their namesake rivers.

“We’re still paying the price for that legacy,” Schumacher said. “But now when we do our studies, environmental reclamation is added right into the cost analysis.’ The mining convention, which runs through Friday, also features a luncheon speech today by Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, and a session on what can be learned from the Bre-X scandal on Thursday morning.

On Tuesday evening, the association’s 1997 Geologist of the Year Award went to Sojourner, the robotic geologist that explored Martian terrain during this year’s Pathfinder mission. Howard Eisen, operations downlink controller for Sojourner, accepted the award on behalf of the entire NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory team.

Laura Skaer, executive director of the association, said the gathering is “the single-largest convention to come to Spokane,” adding, “I think we’ll get close to 3,500 people by the end of the week.”

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