Miners Take Note: Plans Afoot to Make Federal Lands in Washington's Okanogan County Permanently Off-Limits to Mining.

According to a news item in Friday's Everett Herald, Senator Patty Murray of Washington introduced legislation in Congress last May to ostensibly, "protect water, salmon and other natural resources in the upper watershed of the Methow Valley."

The bill, which was heard in the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, is titled the "Methow Headwaters Protection Act of 2016" (S.2991) and would withdraw just over 340,000 acres of federal forest land in Okanogan County from "location, entry, and patent under the mining laws."

It appears that, should the legislative assault fail, the Forest Service is concocting an end-run around the existing law by taking administrative steps to shut down Okanogan County mining.  The Herald piece reports that Leslie Weldon, deputy chief of the Forest Service's national forest system and a witness in favor of Murry's bill at Thursday's hearing, plans to coordinate with the Bureau of Land Management in effecting a "temporary" withdrawal from mineral activity of the 340,000 acres in question.

Readers should be aware that these measures are likely only the first in a series, the objective of which is a complete ban on all mining and prospecting activities in Washington State.

Readers should also be aware that these measures are in direct conflict with Title 30 United States Code Section 21a which states, in pertinent part:

The Congress declares that it is the continuing policy of the Federal Government in the national interest to foster and encourage private enterprise in (1) the development of economically sound and stable domestic mining, minerals, metal and mineral reclamation industries, (2) the orderly and economic development of domestic mineral resources, reserves, and reclamation of metals and minerals to help assure satisfaction of industrial, security and environmental needs, (3) mining, mineral, and metallurgical research, including the use and recycling of scrap to promote the wise and efficient use of our natural and reclaimable mineral resources, and (4) the study and development of methods for the disposal, control, and reclamation of mineral waste products, and the reclamation of mined land, so as to lessen any adverse impact of mineral extraction and processing upon the physical environment that may result from mining or mineral activities.

How the "continuing policy of the Federal Government...to foster and encourage private enterprise in the development of economically sound and stable domestic mining, metal and mineral reclamation industries" is served by a complete ban on all mining activities on the public lands administered by the Forest Service and the BLM is a mystery to this writer.  Perhaps Senators Murray and Cantwell (S.2991's only cosponsor), together with Forest Service Deputy Chief Weldon, would care to explain?