Mining

FAST 41 and Adding Mining Projects

by

This shows the DOT Dashboard for the Chokecherry-Sierra Madre Wind Energy Project.
Leslie Watson wondered about the regulation that revised Fast-41 to include the mining industry.

She said “In reviewing Fast 41 requirements, it in not quite clear to me on how the Jan 8 2021 revised rule will be implemented and if a mining project (such as Stibnite Gold Project) are included under Fast 41, what changes for agency staff and applicants?”

Fast-41 Rule; revised to include mining industry
The origin of Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act was to “improve the timeliness, predictability, and transparency of the Federal environmental review and authorization process for covered infrastructure projects.” Eligible projects under the statute are those subject to NEPA, over a $200M investment and are not included under other abbreviated authorization or environmental review processes. The Jan 8 2021 rule includes the mining industry projects as defined by the permitting council and consistent with E.O. 13807, “Establishing Discipline and Accountability in the Environmental Review and Permitting Process for Infrastructure Projects,” and E.O. 13817, “A Federal Strategy to Ensure Secure and Reliable Supplies of Critical Minerals.”

Guidance for the Coordinated Project Plan from the permitting council (May 26, 2020 https://www.permits.performance.gov/fpisc-content/fast-41-process#whatiscpp) include the following:
The Coordinated Project Plan (CPP) is a tailored roadmap to the permitting process, developed by Federal agencies in partnership with the project sponsor. In developing the CPP, agencies collaborate to establish:
• Roles and responsibilities for all entities with permitting responsibilities
• A permitting schedule with interim and final milestones, with potential focus areas for additional interagency coordination noted
• Potential avoidance, minimization, and mitigation strategies
• Plans and a schedule for public and tribal outreach and coordination

She asks “Would mining project proposed for inclusion under the Fast 41 program develop a CCP to submit to the lead federal agency for the project along with a Plan of Operations?”

It sounds to me from a brief review that the developer would choose to opt in (here are the pros and cons according to one law firm). Then the Lead Agency would initiate the CPP. Possibly the FS would be the lead agency; I’m not clear when BLM is the lead on minerals.

Here’s a summary from DOT about FAST41.

It looks like while BLM has quite a few projects enrolled in Fast41, the FS only has one project (one was cancelled), the Kake to Petersburg Tranmission Line.

Here’s a roadmap of the coordination process. The Forest Service has its own website about FAST41 here.

This might sound pretty specialized, but with the Biden Administration potentially encouraging many new wind and solar installations plus the necessary transmission lines on federal lands, we may all become more familiar with FAST41 and using it for projects.

Batteries vs. Buckwheat: Mining for Lithium on Federal Lands

by
Photo of rare buckwheat from CBD via AP.

This AP story has all the challenges of the “good industry” versus “bad industry” philosophical conundrum. We know that electric cars are good, at least if they are run off all carbon-free sources. Unfortunately, they require (as almost everything does) mining minerals to build them.

CBD says “not where they occur on federal land in Nevada, due to an endangered buckwheat.”

The company acknowledges Tiehm’s buckwheat hasn’t been documented anywhere else on earth, but denies the mine would lead to its extinction.

Company officials say they’ve been researching the plant since 2016, going to great lengths to ensure its protection and examining how it’s fared during previous mining operations at Rhyolite Ridge, near the small town of Tonopah, over the past 80 years.

They recently spent $60,000 for a yearlong study at the University of Nevada, Reno. Scientists there are growing hundreds of seedlings in a greenhouse to determine whether it’s feasible to transplant them into the wild to bolster the limited population, an estimated 43,000 plants covering a total of 21 acres (8.5 hectares).

“We have always been aware of the buckwheat. It didn’t come as a surprise,” Ioneer President Bernard Rowe told The Associated Press in a phone interview from Australia.

All site activity has been undertaken with the “protection of the buckwheat first and foremost in mind,” Rowe said. He added the company’s mitigation strategy “will ensure protection and, in fact, the expansion of the buckwheat population.”

“We’re seeing evidence of that at the greenhouse at UNR,” Rowe said. “We’ve got a reasonably high degree of confidence we can successfully propagate these plants and protect them.”

But what I thought was most interesting about this article, given our discussions about abstraction, are quotes from the scientists involved (caveat, they may have been misquoted, but I’m taking this at face value).

Leger, who also serves as director of UNR’s Museum of Natural History, said those who dismiss the flowers as weeds unworthy of all the fuss don’t understand the value of biodiversity.

“Weed is a human construct. A weed is a plant that grows anywhere a human doesn’t want it,” she said, adding biodiversity is “magic” and a safeguard against future loss.

Biodiversity is actually a human construct, as is the idea of species, especially when we get to telling closely related species apart.

I’m a little concerned with a scientist saying that that biodiversity is “magic”, though. Anyway, it’s interesting what it means to potentially lose “a species” of buckwheat that grows on 21 acres as opposed to losing “biodiversity”. Is it more compelling, or magic, or less compelling or magic?

Meanwhile, Donnelly of CBD (not a scientist) says:

He acknowledged a difference between transplanting plants and growing them from seeds, but said it’s “beside the point, really.”

“A species is more than a set of genetic material. A species is inextricable from its habitat,” Donnelly said. “To allow a species’ habitat to be wiped out and put it someplace else, is functionally allowing it to go extinct.”

I always thought ESA was about “sets of genetic material” but maybe CBD intends to raise the bar.

Rare Earth Mineral Production, Federal Lands and American Minerals and Security Act, S. 1317

by

This article from the Colorado Springs Gazette talks about a bipartisan bill to encourage mining of rare metal deposits. They reported on a Colorado School of Mines professor, Morgan Bazilion, testifying to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee.

Bazilian is director of the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden.

He testified before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee as it considers legislation that creates incentives for U.S. mining companies to extract more of the minerals to make rechargeable batteries, solar panels, wind turbines and consumer products.

Manufacturing them often requires use of rare earth elements such as lithium, cobalt and yttrium.

Most rare earth minerals used in the U.S. come from China, where regulatory and environmental obstacles are less stringent and costly. Minerals commonly are extracted from open pit mines that are unlikely to win permits from U.S. regulatory agencies.

Nevertheless, new clean energy technologies cannot do without them, Bazilian said.

“The future energy system will be far more mineral- and metal-intensive than it is today,” he told the Senate committee. “Many of these advanced technologies require minerals and metals with particular properties that have few to no current substitutes.”

U.S. Geological Survey studies show large rare metal deposits in Colorado, particularly in the Wet Mountains and San Juan Mountains.

A leading legislative proposal in Congress to encourage more U.S. development of rare earth minerals is the American Mineral and Security Act, S. 1317.

It would require the Interior Department to maintain a list of minerals critical to U.S. economic prosperity and national security. Regulatory agencies also would be charged with improving processes to find, develop and use the minerals for industry.

You can see if there are rare earth minerals spotted by the USGS on these maps. Which even an old GIS-impaired person can use. Some appear to be on FS, although to what extent the FS would regulate vs. it being a locatable mineral, I don’t know.

I think it’s interesting because it’s one of a list of products (1) is something people need and (2) it can be produced from US lands but (3) the choice is to pay folks in other countries with potentially less stringent environmental regulation, and who may not always be inclined to sell them to us. On the pyramid of pristinity, of course, mining is possibly the lowest.

It seems to me that a rational approach would be to suggest:
(1) our country’s demand and use is the ultimate source of environmental damage, not the producer. By buying resources from other countries, we are implicitly accepting our responsibility for their environmental damage. This decoupling of responsibility seems to be assumed.
(2) there is some utility to being diverse and resilient to market forces and not dependent on other countries (especially when there are relatively few).
(3) if we produce, we can regulate in a way that is meaningful to us,
(4) if we produce, we get jobs (seemingly high paying), taxes, and if it’s on federal land, $ back to the feds (and for oil and gas, the states).
(5) to me, it’s conceptually different if we have it and don’t produce it, compared to not having the resource at all, which necessitates trade as a source.

For those of us who remember the oil crises of the past, we may not understand all the ins and outs of the geopolitical consequences of dependence for today, but our experience has not been good.

But what if we decided to take environmental responsibility for our own demand (in cases where we have that resource), and produce what we consume ourselves, or at least enough to make us resilient to market and geopolitical forces?

And what should be the role that federal land would play in that? Politician wise, we have the current Gov. of Colorado who called for less regulating of solar and wind on federal land, and we have current Presidential candidates who want to stop oil and gas leasing on federal land. Should the openness to activities on federal land depend on The Pyramid of Pristinity or the Pyramid of Climate Utility?

Mining by the Ouachita National Recreation Trail

by

I found three things interesting about this situation.  Legally, I think there is a problem if the environmental analysis for a mine fails to say anything about the proximity to or the effects on a national trail and its users.

Bo Lea, president of FoOT, told The Sentinel-Record Jan. 15 that the Ouachita National Recreation Trail is a 223.5-mile premiere hiking and biking trail, and FoOT’s concern was that project’s environmental assessment made “no mention of the Ouachita Trail except for one map that shows a 150-foot buffer between the trail and the mining area. That’s only 50 yards.”

The Forest seems to be assuming that the buffer will fully mitigate any effects, but that has to be disclosed and supported by some analysis.

Politically, this area is in the Congressional district of Bruce Westerman, who has become renowned for proposing anti-environmental riders to Forest Service legislation.  At least he is consistent:

“I’ve long supported sustainable mining in the 4th District, provided it benefits local communities and stewards natural resources well,” Westerman said Tuesday in an email. “I look forward to the results of the Quartz Mine’s environmental review, and hope to see it progress in the upcoming year.”

Lastly, this is an area that is promoted for mountain bike use by the Forest Service and organizations that appear to support both hiking and biking.  It’s an “epic” biking trail, and it doesn’t go through any wilderness areas.

Energy dominance coming to national forests

by

The Forest Service plans to submit a rule that would make it easier to explore oil and gas drilling, as well as mineral mining, in National Forests.

“It is in the national interest to promote clean and safe development of our Nation’s vast energy resources, while at the same time avoiding regulatory burdens that unnecessarily encumber energy production, constrain economic growth, and prevent job creation,” the rule notice reads.

“The intent of these potential changes would be to decrease permitting times by removing regulatory burdens that unnecessarily encumber energy production. These potential changes would promote domestic oil and gas production by allowing industry to begin production more quickly,” the notice reads

I assume that any such burdens are in place because someone thought they were “necessary,” and I hope there is a good discussion of why they are no longer so.

For mining,

“Increasing the consistency of the agencies’ procedures and rules would benefit persons who conduct locatable mineral operations on the public lands managed by the [Bureau of Land Management] as well as on National Forest System lands managed by the Forest Service,” the notice reads.

Interesting how they are not even paying the lip service that usually sounds like this: “while protecting the environment and other national forest uses.”  I look forward to their analysis of effects on global warming.