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Unearthed: Excavating a wild cutthroat stream in Montana
Here’s a case study for why we need a new approach to abandoned mine cleanups The stamping mill from the old mine is a concrete ruin four miles up a dirt road from the town of Superior, Mont., population 800, in the Bitterroot Range. It’s astride a tributary that you could hop across, Flat Creek,…
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Time to modernize a relic of westward expansion
To clean up the West’s abandoned mines, we need funding and liability protections for Good Samaritans who want to do the work This month marks the 150-year anniversary of the 1872 Mining Law, a relic of westward expansion and Manifest Destiny. Under the law, which governs hardrock mining on public lands, the federal government gave…
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TU’s Finnerty to Congress: protect SW Oregon salmon and steelhead strongholds
On November 9, Dean Finnerty became the latest Trout Unlimited representative to testify before Congress, when he appeared before the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands in support of the Southwestern Oregon Watersheds and Salmon Protection Act. Few are more qualified to tout the importance of southwestern Oregon streams for salmon and steelhead than…
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Congress must act to reform ancient mining laws
Abandoned hard-rock mines create some of the most significant water quality problems facing our country, but in Congress we have an opportunity to invest in cleaning up pollution of the past, while modernizing our mining laws so we don’t face the same issues in the future. With an estimated $54 billion in cleanup costs and tens of thousands of abandoned mines polluting our lands and waters, action is long…
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TU urges Congress to pass Good Samaritan legislation
These mines not only pose physical and public health hazards, but tens of thousands of them are polluting the environment
New law would enable groups like TU to clean up abandoned mines without assuming liability for their pollution Lauren Duncan, a Colorado-based mine reclamation specialist for Trout Unlimited, testified Tuesday before the House Natural Resources Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy and Minerals Resources. The oversight hearing, titled “The Toxic Legacy of the Mining Law of 1872,” evaluated mining-related…
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Out of sight, out of mine?
An abandoned mine overlooks Lion Creek drainage near Empire, Colorado By Randy Scholfield We are bouncing along in four-wheel drive vehicles, high in the Clear Creek watershed west of Denver, overlooking beautiful forest vistas and steep hillsides laced with snowmelt creeks. We are here with a group of reporters to show them a dark secret…
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Acid mine waste and trout don’t mix
The North Star Mine in Silverton, Colo. Mining plays an important part to Colorado’s history. Many mountain towns were founded upon mining and some still rely on it as an economic driver. But it also left a legacy of damage and destruction to many headwater streams and rivers around the state. Trout Unlimited’s mine reclamation program balances maintaining the…
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