Abandoned Mines Pose Threat to Public Health and Safety RENO, NV (KUNR) - Inspectors took a year to study how well the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service manage abandoned mines in Arizona, Nevada and California. The central problem, according to the report, is that the BLM's abandoned mine lands program has been chronically and drastically under-funded. Currently, the program receives less than 10 million dollars a year, and it's estimated that the closure and clean up of thousands of abandoned mines across the West would cost billions more than is allocated.

Beyond funding, and most disturbing to inspectors, is that BLM employees were discouraged from identifying abandoned mine sites. The report says the offending BLM managers fear abandoned mine safety gets in the way of other land management activities, and further, if the BLM acknowledges a hazard, they'd be responsible if someone got hurt. Several employees told inspectors that management made threats against their careers for raising these issues, though no one was named in the report.

At several BLM sites, inspectors found dangerous levels of environmental contaminants, such as arsenic, lead, and mercury - all easily accessible to visitors and local residents, often without their knowledge. In Nevada, the Virginia City area was cited as being rife with hazardous abandoned mines and mill sites. Inspectors noted several commercial enterprises centered on abandoned mines, including an operation that offers tours of a dangerously dilapidated mill building and a mine adit where two residents were killed by suffocation in 1996. The report also says several Virginia City homes and lots for sale are adjacent to dangerous abandoned mines. The sprawling cement carcass of a mill in the American Flats area near Virginia City was also identified as a hazardous place where little is done to discourage trespass.

No one from the BLM was available for recorded comment, though in a written statement the agency says it has an active program in place to identify and address abandoned mine hazards and that it accepts all 8 of the report's recommendations and will work diligently to implement them.
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