Small-time prospectors may face restrictions

By Mitch Tobin
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

There's gold in them thar hills, but local prospectors may soon find it harder to hunt for the shiny flecks and tiny nuggets in the Coronado National Forest.

By next summer, the U.S. Forest Service plans to release new rules for so-called placer mining in the mountains east of Green Valley and northwest of Nogales.

Mining with dynamite, gaping open pits and dump trucks the size of houses aren't at stake. It's old-school, small-scale prospecting with shovels, sifters and sluice boxes - something that's done today for fun rather than fortune.

The Forest Service can't prohibit prospecting because the activity is still governed by the General Mining Law of 1872. The act, which sought to encourage mineral exploration and settlement of the West, has since become the bane of environmentalists, who say it subsidizes damage to public lands.

But the Forest Service, concerned about damage from digging in its Nogales Ranger District, believes it has the authority to limit how and when prospectors search for gold.

Not so, said Glynn A. Burkhardt, vice president of the Arizona Small Mine Operators Association.

"It's completely unlawful," he said. "It's an attempt to circumvent the mining law and set up their own little rules and regulations."

Most local prospectors are elderly and just looking for a good time, Burkhardt said.

"It's relaxation, it's fun, it's recreation and it gets them out of doors," he said. "We're talking hours of work for maybe 25 cents worth of gold. There's nothing there to cash in."

Mining has taken place since the early 18th century in what is now the Nogales Ranger District, but the Forest Service has never examined its cumulative impact. The agency is now seeking public input on the issue as it prepares to either conduct an environmental assessment or a more extensive environmental impact statement.

"We'll look at the big picture in terms of what we have out there and what future impacts we're willing to make," said Lydia Goon, a minerals assistant with the Coronado National Forest. "At this time, there's no ceiling or limit and we just take them (prospectors) as they come."

Prospectors don't need a mining claim to search for gold, but they are supposed to notify the Forest Service, Goon said. Casual ore hunters only need to file a notice of intent, while operations involving mechanized equipment require filing a more extensive plan of operation.

The Coronado wants to make sure placer mining isn't creating new roads or damaging vegetation, Goon said. Because prospectors' holes can be as much as 6 feet deep, "you can have wildlife trapped in there and they have the tendency to expire in the bottom of that hole," she said.

But local prospectors say they backfill holes and even pick up trash left on their claims by other forest visitors, legal and otherwise.

"Our impact on that area is minimal. We go in there and dig some holes, then cover them up," said David Steimle, past president of the Gold Prospectors Association of Tucson. "As claim owners and club members, we try to be good stewards of the property."

One of the highest concentration of claims in Southern Arizona is in the Greaterville area, on the eastern slopes of the Santa Rita Mountains. That has some Sonoita-area residents pushing for stricter rules for placer mining.

"They say it's small-scale, but sometimes there are 40, 50 or 60 people out there," said Jim Notestine, a board member of the Sonoita Crossroads Community Forum.

Notestine said he's concerned that runoff from mining areas will pollute the area's groundwater and that prospecting will disturb the wildlife corridor between the Santa Ritas and Las Cienegas National Conservation Area.

Other mining claims within the ranger district lie in the Tumacacori Highlands, a rugged area northwest of Nogales where environmentalists want to see 84,500 acres of national forest designated as wilderness. Such a move wouldn't invalidate existing claims, but it would prevent future claims from being filed.

"Wilderness and mining don't mix," said Matt Skroch, programs director for the Tucson-based Sky Island Alliance.

The prospecting issue "is not a super-high priority for us," he said, but "certainly there are areas appropriate and inappropriate for these kinds of mining activities."

Many prospectors are fighting the wilderness designation for the same reason they oppose the Forest Service's potential regulation of placer mining: The public won't have enough access to public lands.

"They can't seem to remember they are part of the Department of Agriculture for a reason - to fairly regulate economic activities on the forests, not shut them down," said David Salars, a member of the local Desert Gold Diggers club.

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