Mining Monitor, Runoff Watch, Real Estate Room

New national monument proposal; Sage Plain Potash? Dust event; more

Mining Monitor

Last week the Grand Canyon Tribal Coalition called on the Biden administration to designate Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni Grand Canyon National Monument on about 1.1 million acres of federal land in northern Arizona. The proposed monument would permanently ban new mining claims and oil and gas leases and would cover much the same ground as a 20-year uranium mining moratorium. It would not affect Energy Fuels’ controversial Pinyon Plain née Canyon uranium mine, which is apparently gearing up to resume operations. However, it would halt other proposed development within the monument. The 12-tribe coalition’s proposal has the backing of Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and Rep. Raul Grijalva.

Is a massive Potash mining project coming to the Great Sage Plain? Last month Canada-based Sage Potash announced its intention to prospect and mine for potash on 88,119 acres of private, state and federal mining claims in southeastern Utah. The target area is east of Monticello and north of Hovenweep National Monument in an archaeologically rich area along the Utah-Colorado border. While the company has acquired land and mining claims, it has not even formally applied for BLM prospecting permits. So any development would be a long ways off and it’s not clear what it would look like. Potash — or potassium chloride — is used in fertilizer and can be mined or extracted via wells and then is either processed mechanically or with big evaporation ponds. Sage’s investor presentation indicates it will go with wells and mechanical evaporation, which tends to work better in arid areas. Russia and its ally Belarus are among the world’s largest producers of potash, meaning the invasion of Ukraine is affecting global supplies and driving up prices, potentially making projects like this one more lucrative.

The Land Desk has often bemoaned the fact that the overarching federal hardrock mining law was put in place 151 years ago and has been reformed only minimally since. The General Mining Law of 1872 is what makes it possible for companies and individuals to stake claims on thousands of acres of public land, virtually for free, and to mine the land and extract and profit from the American public’s minerals, without paying a cent in royalties. Meanwhile, oil and gas and coal companies must fork out (inadequate) lease bonus fees, rent and royalties on production. Members of Congress have tried to reform the mining law many times over the years, but the mining industry and the politicians in their pockets beat back the attempts every time.

But now it appears some courts are stepping in where the politicians have failed. Last week U.S. District Court Judge Larry Hicks adopted a relatively strict interpretation of the law to toss out the Bureau of Land Management’s approval of a molybdenum mine in Nevada. Hicks echoed a 2022 court ruling revoking the permit for the Rosemont copper mine in Arizona.

Both rulings found that mining law does not allow a company to dump waste-rock or tailings on public land adjacent to valid mining claims, and that in order to stake claims on that land, the company must prove it contains valuable, recoverable minerals. It falls far short of the reform necessary. But it also sets a precedent, showing that even an arcane law doesn’t give mining companies the right to run roughshod over Americans and their lands.

In March, Nevada Inc filed 321 20.66-acre lode claims (6,632 acres) near Red Hill, New Mexico. Nevada Inc shares an Elko, Nevada, address with Lithium Corporation and Rangefront Mining Services, which is a “partner” of Lithium Corp. So this could be Lithium Corp. staking the claims for lithium or graphite extraction, or it could be Rangefront staking them for someone else. See this and other mining projects at the Land Desk Mining Monitor Atlas.

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Runoff Watch

Warming temperatures across much of the West sparked a robust and early spring runoff surge over the first couple weeks of April. The rapid melt was accelerated in Colorado’s mountains by a significant dust-on-snow event. That’s when spring winds lift up oodles of dust from the Colorado Plateau, turning the sky an apocalyptic shade of orange, before depositing it on the surface of the snow. This not only makes the gleaming white mountaintops grungy, but also reduces albedo — or reflectivity — meaning the snow absorbs rather than deflects sunlight, leading to a faster melt. The dust could potentially shorten and diminish the spring runoff, which ain’t good.

I wrote about the phenomenon back in 2021:

Those who use the water, whether they are irrigators or river rafters or fish, want an abundant but slow-melting snowpack. Dust on snow speeds up the snowmelt, disrupting alpine flora phenology, or the natural calendar that tells plants when to bloom and so forth, and pushing the spring runoff earlier into the year. Reduced albedo enhances evapotranspiration and snow sublimation, thereby reducing the amount of water that goes into the streams and rivers. Aeolian dust on the snow, alone, has pushed the peak of spring runoff of the Colorado River watershed up by three weeks, when compared to the period prior to the 1850s, and it has also reduced the total runoff volume.

But the dust was followed by cooling temperatures and a little more snow in the high country — resulting in an “albedo reset” as the Center for Snow and Avalanche Studies’ Jeff Derry put it. That paused most rivers’ rapid rise, alleviated flooding in places where streams were jumping the banks, and will help preserve the snowpack a little longer, which is good for just about everyone. The dust, however, is not going away. It lurks under a few inches of new snow, waiting to unleash its albedo-dampening powers.

Dust, snow, and diminishing albedo

If it ain’t floods, its fires, and sometimes both at the same time. The Albuquerque National Weather Service is forecasting three days of critical fire weather starting today (4/18) across a vast swath of New Mexico and southeastern Colorado.  Take care out there.

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A new Rig to Flip film, The River of Sorrows, is hitting the road and may be headed to a venue near you. The film follows two packrafters down the beleaguered Dolores River in southwest Colorado, providing a storyline through which the river’s complex issues—from uranium mining to overallocation to boating and tribal water rights—are illuminated. Cody Perry, of Dolores, Colorado, directs the production. It’s a good year for it, as it’s the first spring since 2019 that enough water will be released from McPhee Dam to make for a good boating season. Heck, even if they didn’t release anything the lower stretches are already boatable.

Check out Protectthedolores.org for a schedule of showings.

And who knows, we may even get to see something like this (unlikely, as this was pre-dam, but still…):

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Real Estate Room

Normally I reserve this space for ridiculing or lambasting absurdly overpriced real properties in the West or, on occasion, highlighting reasonably priced, albeit radically unconventional, real estate. But today I’m feeling in a more charitable mood, I guess, so I’m going to point out one of the last places that’s not in the Midwest to buy a relatively affordable home, at least so far as I can tell.

I know, it would appear that I’m promoting real estate, which kind of makes me feel icky. But really I’m just sort of baffled by these prices. They’re still high, yes, and unaffordable to most people. But if you compare them to prices in other, similar areas they are kind of incredible. My question is, Why? The location is Cerrillos and Madrid (pronounced Mád-rid) New Mexico, two villages south of Santa Fe.

Property I: I know, $489k is not cheap, by any means, and certainly out of reach of most of us working stiffs. But, consider this: It’s a 40-acre parcel with four cabins on it, a 1,440 sf one and three others, which look pretty damned nice in the pics. Plus, it used to be a Tibetan Buddhist retreat, and that’s gotta be worth something, right?

Property II: This one’s $345k. Where can you find an actual house for that price these days, let alone a pretty sweet looking adobe abode with tile floors and vigas in the roof? In Durango that price would only get you a 1 bedroom, 568 sf condo built in 1983. Blargh.

If any of y’all end up buying one of these, I deserve a finder’s fee goshdarnit!

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Parting Map

I just thought this map from the Census Bureau was kind of interesting. It shows population changes by county between July 2021 and July 2022. Most of rural New Mexico is shrinking, while almost all of Utah—with the exception of San Juan County—is growing. And, surprising to me, Pitkin County in Colorado is shrinking even as the real estate market goes bananas. Probably because people are buying mansions and not necessarily living in them, while actual residents—even millionaires—are getting priced out.