Bohemia: A mountain of pollution.

Byline: Diane Dietz The Register-Guard

MINING'S TOXIC LEGAGCY

Part five of a five-part series

Look to Bohemia Mountain 35 miles southeast of Cottage Grove to see where pioneer-era mining laws collide with today's environmental laws, leaving a finely grained pile of illogic.

On the outside of Bohemia Mountain, the federal government just spent a half-million dollars studying pollution from the historic Champion gold mine, and it plans to spend at least $1.4 million more cleaning up the mess over the next three years.

Acidic water from the mine carries toxic metals into a nearby creek; mercury is accumulating in downstream fish.

All the while, inside the mountain, modern-day miner Richard Secord Jr. spends his summers blasting rock and hauling ore out of the very same 15,000 to 30,000 feet of tunnel where commercial miners operated through the mid-1900s. And Secord has never given a written guarantee to the government agency that owns the land that if his activities someday create another mess, he'll clean it up.

The 1872 national mining law grants Secord a nearly absolute right to mine Bohemia Mountain, which is mainly on U.S. Forest Service land. Meanwhile, the federal Clean Water Act puts the ultimate cleanup burden on taxpayers.

"People pay $100 a year, and they get to go pretend they are miners," said Mary Camarata, the state Department of Environmental Quality official keeping tabs on the federal cleanup at Champion. "It's nuts. But the Forest Service has no choice."

Yet to claimholders in the century-old Bohemia Mining District, which includes Champion, mining is wholesome family recreation, an individual's shot at the golden ring. And it's a place to be left alone - especially from federal regulators.

"They need to keep their noses out of the Bohemia Mining District and put their noses where it's needed," said Susan Van Hauck, a member of the Bohemia Mine Owners Association. "Up here, it's been left alone for 70 years, and it needs to be kept left alone."

Secord isn't piling up mining waste outside the mine, and there's no record to show that he has opened up more sulfide veins that would increase the acid-water seepage from the mine. But the Forest Service has yet to extract an assurance from Secord that he would pay for any cleanup.

Already the federal agency has pledged to spend nearly $2 million in public funds - plus an expected $3,000 a year in perpetuity - to clean up the historic mess running out of the same tunnels that Secord now claims.

Weekend fortune seekers

Today, as many as 300 people hold stakes in the interior workings of Bohemia Mining District mines. The Forest Service owns the surface rights over most of those claims.

Most Bohemia miners are weekend fortune seekers, digging or panning gold in their free time. A few, such as Secord, have tried to scratch a living from the mountain.

Secord said no one should worry about his operation. He tried to make a go at full-time mining, but he has since returned to his job in a lumber mill.

"We're pretty minuscule," he said. "People who don't know what's going on think we're just ripping and tearing. Well, it's just my dad and myself. I'm 54. Dad's 75. What do you think we're going to do?"

But a 1999 report by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that small-time miners present a disproportionate financial and environmental risk to taxpayers.

Regulators find it difficult to get financial assurances from these miners and to keep track of what they're doing.

"I'm not sure they're really regulated to any extent. The 1872 mining law is the only thing that governs them. They kind of fall between the cracks," said Ken Marcy, a Seattle-based manager for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Miners oppose cleanup plan

The EPA and the Forest Service already are up to their rubber-gloved elbows in studies of the Bohemia Mining District.

They spent three years and $500,000 in public money studying mercury and other metals washing into Champion Creek and points downstream, including Dorena Lake.

"The Champion mine is contributing some mercury to the aquatic ecosystem on a yearly basis," wrote James Caplan, supervisor of the Umpqua National Forest, in a memo this spring. He ordered a $1.4 million federally funded cleanup to begin this fall.

Bohemia miners oppose that plan. Seven asked the federal government to stop because no cleanup is needed. Five mine owners refused to give the EPA access to their claims for the agency's study of mercury in the watershed.

Mine owner Jim Potterf, a retired radiator shop owner, was one of the five. "I wouldn't want them to find anything," he said. "I'm not looking for a witch hunt. When you let the government do things like that, oftentimes that's what develops."

The mine owners doubt that acidic mine seepage is a problem at any of the hundreds of mines in the district.

Secord said water running out of mining entrances on Bohemia Mountain isn't acidic enough to be toxic. "I've washed my face with it. I've swallowed it; I'm not going to drink a ton of it, but I'm just as healthy as the next guy," he said.

State and federal environmental testing showed, however, that waters from the main Champion mine entrance that is included in Secord's claim pour out at up to 350 gallons a minute and have registered as low as 4 on the pH scale, which is acidic enough to stop fish reproduction.

Higher up the mountain, another of the Champion entrances that Secord uses puts out waters with a pH of 2.8, akin to lemon juice and lethal to fish.

The minerals have killed Champion Creek next to the mine site, researchers found. A full mile downstream, the water still carries dissolved barium, cadmium, copper and zinc. The EPA found mercury from 0.2 to 2.1 milligrams per kilogram downstream. The background concentrations averaged much less: 0.08 milligrams per kilogram.

The mercury "is coming from multiple sources" the EPA's Marcy said. "There's a whole host of mines up there."

Bohemia mine owners say government agencies exaggerate the problems with the metals, and especially mercury, which occurs naturally.

"Money's available, so the federal government is using it to clean up the site - a make-work type of situation," Lane County Commissioner and Bohemia mine owner Faye Stewart said.

At the Champion mine, the Forest Service is poised for cleanup.

The government's concept is to rebuild the 290,000-gallon settling pond at the mouth of the mine and create a half-acre wetland to filter out metals from the discharging water.

Also, officials want to haul away 500 cubic yards of toxic-metal sludge at the bottom of the existing settling pond. And they want to cover 26,000 cubic yards of other mine wastes with 2 feet of soil, plus plants.

Secord scoffs at the notion. "I'm not keen on their wetlands idea; that's a wet dream of somebody's," he said. "They can go up there, and they can study it. The plant people and the bug people can keep their little jobs going."

What protects the public pocketbook from facing cleanup costs on current and future Bohemia Mining District operations, such as Secord's work inside Bohemia Mountain?

When Secord next ramps up production, he'll have to finalize a plan of operations for the mine, Forest Service officials said.

A draft plan he submitted five years ago proposed that he post a bond guaranteeing $5,000 for surface cleanup, such as reshaping ground he disturbed. But the draft is silent on dealing with any increase in acid and metals-laden water coming from the mine.

That's nuts, anti-mining activist Larry Tuttle said.

"There's a known, substantial risk in the Bohemia District related to heavy metal discharges. You need to have a bond that's sufficiently high in amount to cover the risk to taxpayers," he said.

The bond, he said, must be enough to clean up a worst-case mess - such as when a miner spurs an acidic gusher - and that may amount to millions of dollars.

Secord, on the other hand, said Tuttle is paid by his environmentalist constituents to say that. "He makes a good living out of screaming at us," Secord said.

"We get the freaks that come up here every once in a while: `You're ruining mother earth.' Well, go back to your school bus and smoke some dope and go on your way," he said.

Part five of a five-part series

THE SERIES

SUNDAY: The Formosa mine is an old-style mining mess created barely a decade ago. MONDAY: Regulators and companies work to avoid being stuck with mining cleanup costs. TUESDAY: Black Butte mine has contaminated Cottage Grove Lake, making fish unsafe for some to eat. WEDNESDAY: A state effort to remediate mining waste in Sutherlin dies for lack of money. TODAY: Soaring metals prices could spark a resurgence in Oregon mining. Are regulators ready?

Location: In the Bohemia Mining District, 35 miles southeast of Cottage Grove History: Commercial mining for gold and silver, 1890-1949 Current status: Small-scale mining still taking place Ownership: Surface land at mine site primarily owned by U.S. Forest Service; mining claims privately held Pollution: Acidic water polluting streams; mercury leaching into creeks and settling in Dorena Lake