 |
THE MILLSITE ISSUE
What are Millsites?
How are Millsite lands used?
Why are Millsite lands important?
What did the 1997 Solicitor's Opinion do?
What was the standard before the 1997 opinion?
What will happen if the 1997 opinion is reversed?
|
|
What are Millsites?
Millsites are the lands where facilities and other infrastructure necessary to operate a mine are placed.
|
McLaughlin Mine --
Gold mine in Northern California now in reclamation. Shown are typical millsite features including administrative, engineering and environmental offices; laboratories and processing facilities; equipment maintenance and storage areas. |
|
The Mining Law provides two types of claims to secure public lands for mining:
(1) lode or placer mining claims that contain valuable mineral deposits that will be mined; and
(2) millsite claims on non-mineral lands for activities and facilities necessary to support the mining and processing of the minerals.
The law prescribes the dimensions for each type of claim. Each lode or placer claim is about 20 acres in size; while each millsite claim cannot be more than 5 acres. However, the law does not place a numeric limit on how many millsite claims that are necessary to support mining of an individual lode or placer mining claim.
Back to Top
|
|
How are Millsite lands used?
Millsite lands are used for the support and ancillary facilities that comprise the complex infrastructure necessary to operate a mine. The facilities and activities on millsite lands include:
|
|
- milling and processing plants;
- crushing units;
- machine shops;
- power plants;
- warehouses;
- water treatment facilities;
- air quality monitoring stations;
- offices and administrative buildings;
- equipment maintenance areas;
- ore stockpiles;
|
Bingham Canyon Copper Mine -- in operation near Salt Lake City, Utah. Processing facilities are shown.
|
|
- rock waste and tailings repositories;
- holding areas for topsoil and native vegetation to be used in reclamation;
- roads;
- loading and shipping areas.
|
|
Back to Top
Why are Millsite lands important?
Without sufficient lands to support it, an operating mine is technologically and economically infeasible. Before substantial investments can be made in the exploration and subsequent development of mineral deposits, the mine operator must be secure in its rights to use lands for the complex infrastructure needed to successfully operate a mine. In the absence of such certainty, the operator will be unable to obtain the investment capital for the project.
Back to Top
What did the 1997 Solicitor's Opinion do?
The 1997 Solicitor's Opinion changed the longstanding interpretation of the Mining Law. The Opinion says that mine operators can locate and use only 5 acres of surface lands to support the mining on each 20-acre parcel of mineral deposits regardless of the technical, economic or geological necessities of a mine.
Back to Top
What was the standard before the 1997 opinion?
Before 1997, the Mining Law had been interpreted and administered to allow the number of millsites based specifically on what is needed to support operations on the mining claims. See The Wilderness Society, 151 IBLA 346 (2000) (holding that this was the status quo of the law before the 1997 Opinion). In other words, an operator is not automatically entitled to a separate millsite claim for each mining claim, but the operator is not arbitrarily limited to a single millsite claim for each mining claim if more millsite land is necessary to successfully operate the mine. For example, a mining project that involves 10 lode mining claims may require 40 or more millsite claims in order to construct the facilities and infrastructure necessary to support mining and processing the mineral deposits from the 10 lode claims. In other circumstances, a mine operator with 10 lode mining claims may only need 9 or fewer millsite claims to successfully operate the mine. This has been the case-by-case approach embodied in the law and reflected in cases and government policy manuals for almost a century. See BLM Handbook for Mineral Examiners, H-3890, Ch. III , sec. 8 (1989); Forest Service Manual, sec. 2811.33 (1990); BLM, Mining Locations, Entries, and Patents, p. 28 (1954). Remarkably, the 1997 Opinion did not identify any public policy concerns with this longstanding interpretation of the Mining Law. In fact, the Opinion acknowledged that its new interpretation would make the Mining Law unworkable.
Back to Top
What will happen if the 1997 opinion is reversed?
The status quo as it existed before the 1997 Millsite Opinion will be restored so that the mining industry will know they can locate the number of millsites that are sufficient to operate a mine successfully. Investment capital will return to the domestic mining industry to finance the substantial capital requirements for the exploration for new mineral deposits and development of new mines. These investments will create high paying jobs and tax revenues in rural areas throughout the West. The Nation will be able to meet more of its mineral needs from home rather than abroad.
Back to Top
|
