Various Relevant Reports on Impacts of Hardrock Mining
on Environment and Watershed

Maintaining supplies of clean water and protecting watersheds were major reasons why public domain forests and rangelands were reserved. As regions have become more populated and States have failed to protect the valuable resource of water, the imperative for the Federal Government through the Forest Service and other agencies to protect these watersheds for their original intended use. The public can no longer dole out large quantities of water to industry, especially heavy water users such as mining and electro-power plants. If we are going to save our watersheds and the many species of plants and animals that Federal Government has to take on this project to proctect the water in the national forests, wildlife refuges, and designated conservation areas.

Water and the Forest Service

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE • FOREST SERVICE
WASHINGTON OFFICE • FS-660
JANUARY 2000

USDA Forest Service
Policy Analysis
P.O. Box 96090
Washington, DC 20090-6090

SUMMARY:

Public concern about adequate supplies of clean water led to the establishment in 1891 of federally protected forest reserves. The Forest Service Natural Resources Agenda is refocusing the agency on its original purpose. This report focuses on the role of forests in water supply—including quantity, quality, timing of release, flood reductions and low flow augmentation, economic value of water from national forest lands, and economic benefits of tree cover for stormwater reduction in urban areas.

HEALTHY FORESTS ARE VITAL TO CLEAN WATER

Forests are key to clean water. About 80 percent of the Nation’s scarce freshwater resources originate on forests, which cover about one-third of the Nation’s land area. The forested land absorbs rain, refills underground aquifers, cools and cleanses water, slows storm runoff, reduces flooding, sustains watershed stability and resilience, and provides critical habitat for fish and wildlife. In addition to these ecological services, forests provide abundant water-based recreation and other benefits that improve the quality of life.

MAINTAINING AND RESTORING WATERSHEDS WERE PRIMARY REASONS FOR ESTABLISHING THE NATIONAL FORESTS

Use and development of the water resources of the United States underwent major changes during the 19th century in response to the growing demands of a population that had increased nearly 20-fold since the founding of the country. Westward expansion, and navigable rivers, canals, and harbors for transportation transformed the Nation’s economy. As the Nation experienced this period of massive development, major problems emerged from overuse and poor management of its water resources:

The 1897 Organic Administrative Act said these forest reserves were to protect and enhance water supplies, reduce flooding, secure favorable conditions of water flow, protect the forest from fires and depredations, and provide a continuous supply of timber.

By 1915, national forests in the West had been established in much the form they retain today. These national forests, which included 162 million acres in 1915, were essentially carved out of the public domain. At that time, few Federal forests were designated in the East because of the lack of public domain. Public demands for eastern national forests resulted in passage of the 1911 Weeks Act, authorizing the acquisition of Federal lands to protect the watersheds of navigable streams. From 1911 to 1945, about 24 million acres of depleted farmsteads, stumpfields, and burned woodlands were incorporated into the eastern part of the National Forest System.

This report focuses on the role of forests in water supply—including quantity, quality, timing of release, flood reductions and low flow augmentation, economic value of water from national forest lands, and economic benefits of tree cover for stormwater reduction in urban areas.

WATER IS THE CENTRAL ORGANIZER OF ECOSYSTEMS

Throughout human history, water has played a central, defining role. It has sculpted the biological and physical landscape through erosion and disturbance. The amount, place, and timing of water are reflected in the vegetative mosaic across the landscape. Water has also played a key role in shaping the pattern and type of human occupancy; routes of travel and transportation, patterns of settlement, and the nature and scope of human land-use all owe their characteristics largely to water regimes.

Conversely, social demands on the water resource system have produced major effects on virtually every aspect of that system including quality, quantity, distribution, and form (for example, white water vs. impoundments).

The human uses and values of water shape how it is managed, and the biological and physical characteristics of water shape human values and uses. Thus, water resource management requires systems approach that includes not only all of the constituent parts, but also the links, relations, interactions, consequences, and implications among these parts.

Traditionally, water has been valued as an engine of development and as the source of commodity and utilitarian values to society. It has sustained agricultural production, grown forests, and powered cities and industries. Today, these values remain, but they have been joined by a variety of others. Water is the basis for many of the recreational and amenity values people seek. Increasingly, science shows, and managers recognize, the key role of water flow regimes in ecosystem function and processes. Adequate flow and water quality are essential to maintaining key fish species and fisheries, which in turn, are sources of many economic, cultural, and spiritual values.

Across the Nation, significant challenges to resource managers, scientists, and citizens are presented by emerging conflicts over providing high quality, abundant flows of water to sustain a burgeoning population, an agricultural industry, historic salmon runs, and populations of other threatened aquatic species.

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE ROLE OF FORESTS IN WATER SUPPLY

How Much Water Comes from the National Forests?
Excluding Alaska, about two-thirds of the Nation’s runoff comes from forested areas. National forest lands contribute 14 percent of the total runoff. National forest lands are the largest single source of water in the United States and contribute water of high quality. More than 60 percent of the Nation’s runoff is from east of the Mississippi River, where 70 percent of the Nation’s private and State forests are located. National forests in the East are responsible for 6 percent of this runoff. National forests in the West provide proportionately more water (33 percent) because they include the headwaters of major rivers and forested areas of major mountain ranges. Forest Service literature from the 1940’s to the present has claimed that 50 to 70 percent of the Nation’s runoff comes from national forest lands. It is now clear that those claims are overstated.

What is the Value of Water from National Forest Lands?
We calculate the marginal value of water from all national forest lands to equal at least $3.7 billion per year. Annual value of water from national forest lands is greatest in the Pacific Northwest and Pacific Southwest Regions, and lowest in the Southwest Region.

These values represent a lower limit on the range of values attributable to waters flowing from the national forests. The actual values of this water yield are almost certainly higher, but how much higher is not known.

How Should Municipal Watersheds be Managed?
One issue is whether municipal watersheds should be placed under active or passive management regimes to sustain supplies of high-quality water over the long run. Many Forest Service specialists think that water supplies can be best protected by actively managing these watersheds to maintain forest vegetation and watershed processes within their natural range of variation. Conversely, many people in urban centers believe that, in the interest of water quality and safety, people should not alter watersheds in any way, other than to divert the water. Scientific evidence indicates that watersheds can be effectively managed for safe, high-quality water and still provide other resource outputs as byproducts.

Can Forests be Managed to Improve Stream Flow?
Flooding and sedimentation from cutover lands was one of the primary reasons for establishing national forests. The timing of water yields was also an important issue, especially the desire to augment late-season flows.

Vegetative cover and on-site control measures effectively reduce flood peaks. However, significant shifts in the timing of late-season runoff are not likely to be achieved through managing forest vegetation and snow across national forest lands. Treatments that restore slopes, meadows, and channels; increase the routing time between precipitation and runoff; and recharge ground waters can be expected to have a greater effect in sustaining late-season flows.

Although theory suggests that vegetation management can produce more streamflow, for a variety of reasons, general water-yield increases through forest management are likely to fall in an undetectable range. The data suggest that relying on augmentation from national forests will not be a viable strategy for dealing with water shortages. Greater gains can be made by reducing water consumption, improving conservation, and establishing water markets to allocate scarce supplies more efficiently. Providing cold, clear waters of high quality for aquatic organisms and human use is probably the proper focus for managing water on the National Forest System. There is relatively little management can do to increase total water

yield, but forest management can have major effects on water quality—affecting temperature, nutrient loadings, sediment yields, and toxic contaminants.

What is the Agency’s Role in Protecting Instream Flow and Ground Water?
The Forest Service must actively participate in the processes that allocate surface water, ground water, and water rights. To be effective, this participation must be timely and of impeccable technical quality.

Three needs stand out:

Forest plan revisions should incorporate instream flow needs to maintain public values. When a State undertakes a basin-wide adjudication of water rights, all beneficial consumptive and instream water uses on national forest lands should be claimed in accordance with State and Federal laws.

Early and intensive collaboration among existing and potential water users is likely to be the most effective approach. Public and interagency collaboration in forest planning has great potential for solving problems and achieving acceptable solutions, lessening the costly litigation common to water rights issues.

In many places, the Forest Service lacks the technical expertise in hydrology needed to protect instream flows. Our present workforce of in-house expertise must be conserved and enhanced if costly failures are to be avoided. . . . .

Can the Watershed Condition on National Forests be Restored?
The most comprehensive landscape-scale assessment to date—the Interior Columbia Basin Assessment— found that the momentum from past events will push the system further from the desired condition over the decades to come. Even with aggressive management, that momentum will not be overcome within the next 100 years under projected funding. Progress toward forest health restoration can be expected to proceed very slowly. In the interim, vegetative composition and structure at the landscape scale will be determined by unnaturally large, high-intensity fires.

These findings suggest that it will not be feasible torestore all degraded areas. We will have to strategically focus restoration efforts on selected watersheds where we can hope to make a meaningful difference.

What is the Role of Urban Forests in Water Supply?
Counties classified as “urban” contain one-quarter of the total tree cover of the coterminous United States.

Urban trees affect water quantity by intercepting precipitation, increasing water infiltration rates, and transpiring water. They can materially reduce the rate and volume of storm water runoff, flood damage,

stormwater treatment costs, and other problems related to water quality.

The Agency Challenge.
The challenge for the Forest Service will be to simultaneously perform the following:

Full Report . . .

U.S. Forest Service's
Abandoned Mine Land Program
August 2004

Forty percent of all watersheds within the US contain federal land, and 14 percent of the total runoff in the US comes from National Forest System (NFS) lands. NFS lands are the largest single source of municipal water supply for 3,400 communities in 33 states, serving over 66 million people with drinking water. Watershed protection is one of the principle reasons the National Forest System exists and restoration is one of the primary goals that the Forest Service has established as part of its Strategic Plan. In many watersheds containing NFS lands, abandoned mines need to be cleaned up in order to achieve this goal.

Full Report. . .

Part 3: Dewatering an Old Gold Mine
Special Report: Golden Gamble in Grass Valley

By: Doug Mattson
Published: Apr 11, 2005 at 10:07

Editor's note: This is the 3rd story in a special report on the proposed Idaho-Maryland Mine project. For links to previous articles go to www.yubanet.com/specialreport.shtml.

It doesn't take a background in hydrogeology to know that water runs downhill. It's also easy to grasp that, underground, water collects in aquifers. But things get tricky when you begin trying to predict how water moves underneath the Sierra Nevada foothills.

In western Nevada County, groundwater collects in granite fractures of various shapes and sizes that even high-tech equipment can't map in great detail. This leaves guesswork for the drilling crews who search for reliable water sources that can supply private wells.

That's called "the random element," said Tom Knoch, whose many professional titles include hydrogeologist.

"No one knows what the general trend is or what the fracture density is. It's a roll of the dice when you drill a well in the ground," said Knoch, who has an office in Grass Valley, Calif. "Mathematically and using physics, it is indeterminate."

That underlying geological uncertainty fuels some of the biggest public concerns about the proposed Idaho-Maryland Mine project in Grass Valley, population 13,000. Emgold Mining Corp. [a junior Canadian Company] wants to reopen the mine, which closed in 1956 as California's No. 2 underground gold producer. . . .

Emgold says it needs to initially pump 700 million gallons of water -- or 2,500 acre-feet, with an acre-foot equaling one acre covered a foot deep in water. Dewatering would begin at a rate of about 12 acre-feet per day and take about seven months. During exploration, an average of 1,375 acre-feet a year would be dewatered over a course of five years. It would mark Emgold's first dewatering operation as a company, although Idaho-Maryland project director Ross Guenther said people within the company have dewatered mines elsewhere.

The company hopes to be permitted by next year and working underground by 2007. Under that schedule, it says, mining would last until 2027. But city officials indicate they want to move cautiously. Beyond getting the permits needed to operate, Emgold would need to have parts of the mine rezoned by the city, which is the lead agency this time because most of the mine property would be annexed into Grass Valley. . .

Full Report . . .

 

USDA Hazardous Materials Management Program

Strategic Plan for FY 2003-2007
February 19, 2003

Context of This Plan
State and local economies rely on USDA-managed lands for the many benefits and services they provide, including drinking and irrigation water, fishing, camping, boating, swimming, hiking, and subsistence hunting and gathering. Each year, tens of millions of people from all over the world take advantage of the recreational and other opportunities the National Forests and National Grasslands offer. However, many ecosystems and watersheds are not in good health. Some streams can=t even support aquatic life, let alone serve as safe water supplies. In Southeastern Idaho, hundreds of square miles of public (and private) land are off limits to livestock grazing due to the high levels of selenium in soils, water, and vegetation. In many cases, ecosystem and watershed restoration efforts cannot succeed unless mine-scarred lands are first healed.

Rural communities themselves are not exempt from the effects of environmental contamination. Thousands of "brownfields" — failed industries and businesses, old grain storage bins, obsolete animal dip vats, and closed gasoline stations B are continuing sources of environmental contamination, threats to residents' health and well being, and major impediments to economic development or redevelopment. A major lender in many communities, USDA also loses when brownfields blight sets off a string of business failures and loan foreclosures, neutralizing or destroying the benefits and intent of loans, grants, and other USDA assistance to rural communities.

Full Report . . .

The Mining Controversy

An Awareness and Education Kit
for Ontario Grade 7
March 2006
Prepared by
Beth Nicol
Marilyn Crawford

Canary Institute
The Canary Research Institute for Mining, Environment and Health
City Center 508-880 Wellington St., Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1R 6K7
(613) 569-3439
info@canaryinstitute.ca ― www.canaryinstitute.ca

Why examine the mining controversy?

Everyone enjoys the benefits of products derived from the mining industry: we drive in cars and ride in
busses; we use stoves to heat our food; we work on computers with metal components; and we wear
jewellery made of precious and semi precious metals. Our dependency on the extraction of minerals results in
a cost both from an economical and ecological standpoint. As our demands increase on a non-renewable
resource, there is a need to consider conservation, recycling and re-use as alternatives to extraction of raw
materials.

In the last century, mining was viewed as a way to develop and populate remote areas. Towns and cities were
built based on the establishment of a mine. It provided employment and contributed to the economy of
communities.

Today, exploration for minerals, development of mines, and production of metals promise to contribute to the
economy, provide employment opportunities, and provide us with the materials on which we have become
dependant. The demands for non-renewable resources are worldwide and yet are being depleted.

On the other side of the issue, the costs of a boom and bust industry are being questioned. There is a demand
for the short-term interests of a mine to be measured against the long-term impact on health, water and air
quality, fish and wildlife habitat, and community interests. Federal and provincial government ministries
must balance the promotion of resource development with preserving the environment and protecting public
health. “Mining activities can cause significant impacts on the environment, potentially affecting
groundwater and surface water, aquatic life, vegetation, soil, air quality, wildlife, and human health.”1
Is there a need to revise the way we extract and refine? Is enough being done to lower metal consumption
through reduction, reuse and recycling?

This unit is designed to meet required curriculum outcomes in an accessible and readable format. It provides
material that looks at both the potential benefits and the ramifications of mining.

Full Report . . .

 

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