Closing of bureau trims mining research.

The imminent closing of the U. S. Bureau of Mines (USBM) as a cost-cutting measure will curtail research in mine safety and put a stop to some environmentally oriented studies, agency officials say.

"We worry that the science that goes to make a sound base for government regulation may not be there or be sufficient when it's needed," says Dave Brown of USBM in Washington, D. C.

As the 3 months that Congress set for dismantling USBM draw to a close on Jan. 8, some of the agency's research functions are resurfacing elsewhere. These functions have been trimmed to fit a $40 million allotment, a far cry from USBM's original $84 million research request.

The Department of Energy (DOE) plans to carry on with USBM studies to ensure the health and safety of miners, though with considerably reduced funding. Safety studies include examinations of how the geology of a site affects earth movement. DOE also intends to pick up the studies on rock characteristics. Such work led in the past to robotic rock sensors that keep drills centered in coal seams and reduce the need for workers in dangerous drilling areas.

A program in materials research, with funding reduced from $8 million to $3 million, is also transferring to DOE. The program's aims include ways to improve the durability of steel and concrete.

The U. S. Geological Survey plans to take over about half of a USBM information program on the supply of 100 minerals worldwide, while a remnant of an ongoing inventory of minerals on public lands continues in Alaska under the Bureau of Land Management.

No agency is assuming the research aimed at developing cost-effective techniques for extracting small amounts of metal-methods useful both in mining operation and environmental cleanup.

"For years," Brown says, "we've been looking at ways to restore lands damaged by old mines, mills, and refineries." USBM researchers have devised ways to clear lead from soils, oil from riverbeds, and arsenic from water. Their botanical studies targeted species that stabilize iron and lead wastes or can blunt the damage from acidic mine drainage. Says Brown, "all that's gone."

Such programs do not necessarily protect the environment, says Jim Lyon of the Mineral Policy Center in Washington, D. C., a nonprofit organization that tries to reconcile mining and environmental concerns. Lyon cites USBM's work on developing chemical methods to leach metals out of the ground.

"There's an irony here," he says. A process used to avoid moving so much earth "seriously jeopardizes groundwater quality." USBM's technique for recovering gold from low-grade ore by allowing cyanide to percolate through rock, Lyon says, "causes environmental problems every year." Acknowledging such problems, a recent USBM pamphlet describes how new research on a leaching agent that substitutes for cyanide "may give gold-mining companies some new options."

Despite the criticisms, USBM director Rhea L. Graham argues that the agency's research has been valuable. "It seems senseless to reject that kind of impartial knowledge and cut the science out of the solutions to our national problems."