By SHILOH ROAN
The first mine within a federally protected wilderness area in the United States opened last week in the Mount Nebo Wilderness Area.
After more than seven years of debate, Nephi Mayor Robert Steele and partners Jack Dansie and Allen K. Young and Associates, opened roads and started mining.
'Environmentalists have done everything in their power to stifle this because it sets a precedent,' Steele said.
Under wilderness area no motorized vehicles, mining or grazing are allowed, said Megan Delany, Grassroots Environmental Effectiveness Network. Mount Nebo was declared wilderness area in 1984.
Steel said the federal government ruled he was exempt from the typical provisions that protect wilderness areas.
'This shows abuses that flow from the 1872 Mineral Act and the need to reform it,' said Scott Groene, issues director, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.
Groene said the mining law was established during the pioneer days and are horribly outdated. 'Thus far, the mining industry has been able to keep it from being amended,' he said.
'Under the Mining Act, if you can show minerals in the land, the government will give it to you. That is one of the worst provisions of the Act,' Groene said.
According to http://www.defenders.org/mining, the 1872 Mineral Act, originally signed by President Ulysses S. Grant, has been called 'a license to steal.'
The Web document also said that the 'U.S. government has given away over $245 billion of mineral reserves since 1872 through patenting or royalty-free mining.'
Steele gained the land, nearly for free, and now can take out the minerals without paying citizens or government, 'and as a result is going to mar one of Utah's few wilderness areas,' Groene said.
Steele, who acquired the land 25 years ago, had to give his lawyers and other partner part of the land in order to pay for the court costs. He now owns one third of the land.
The 60-acre area, enclosed in wilderness designated land, contains 3.7 million tons of gypsum, worth an estimated $30 million, Steele said.
August 26, Steele and his partners won a settlement in the U.S. Court of Claims. As part of the settlement the U.S. Forest Service agreed to pay the owners $120,000 and also allow them to open the mine.
Steele said they will be mining five acre plots at a time, and then will restore and re-vegetate land before moving on to the next mine.
'The land will be completely restored. The terrain will change, but the land will be put back into its original use,' Steele said.
The entire process could take anywhere from 30 to 60 years, Steele said.
According to the Web article, '12,000 miles of rivers have been polluted by mining damage nationwide ... Nationally, there are more that 550,000 abandoned hard rock mines, and the cost of cleaning them up is estimated at $32 billion to $72 billion.'
Mark Milligan, geologist, Utah Geological Survey, said Steele's original intention was to mine uranium in the 60-acre area. 'There are also copper, lead, limestone and quartz sandstone deposits; however, not enough to make the mining profitable.'
Now, instead of seeing only wildlife, vegetation and natural land structures, visitors to the Mount Nebo Wilderness Area will also see and hear sounds that come from an open-pit mine gypsum mine.