Bloomington Cave Management plan, which involves a permit and gate system. We call on BLM to begin the process to allow similar programs at mines throughout Utah and the West, as an alternative to backfilling.
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NAMHO is the National Association of Mining History Organizations and while based in the UK, does an excellent job of promoting the preservation of mining history worldwide. Here’s a link to their 30th Anniversary issue of their newsletter Congratulations on 30 years of safeguarding our mining heritage!
Should Adopt-a-miners become site stewards?
http://www.blm.gov/heritage/adventures/want_2_help/site_steward.html
With a motto of “help protect the past” this group organizes volunteers in California to monitor sites. Their forms page.
Society for Industrial Archeology
The SIA is made up of members, world-wide, who have a strong interest in preserving, interpreting and documenting our industrial past and heritage. Whatever your profession or favorite pursuit, if you share our interest in the industrial past, we welcome you to join us.
They have a links page
IA Recordings (UK)
Jun 28
IA Recordings is a British website dedicated to putting industry on video–an archive for the future…
http://www.iarecordings.org/index.html
If you know of an old skill or trade, or a working or disused machine, industrial building or landscape that you feel should be recorded; please get in touch with us.
We do our best to respond to all “endangered sites” calls!
The IA Recordings links page contains over 640 links to other Industrial Archaeology pages
Want to study mining history and record, study, interpret and preserve its physical remains? Michigan Tech has a program for you:
http://www.social.mtu.edu/IA/IAWeb/Program.html
Their Death Valley project is fascinating:
http://www.industrialarchaeology.net/IAWeb/DEVA%20website/DEVA%20Project%20Intro.html
The next project MTU wishes to tackle is to interpret the historic mining landscape:
http://www.industrialarchaeology.net/IAWeb/DEVA%20website/DEVA%20Further%20Research.html
They are already actively documenting Utah pioneer pottery makers here:
http://www.ss.mtu.edu/faculty/Scarlett/Research/UPP/upphome.htm
We wholeheartedly embrace the message found in this paragraph:
This research should not end up as mere reports on file at the Antiquities Office of the Utah Division of State History. The documents and artifacts should be available to many people to study and appreciate. One can learn a tremendous amount about history by bringing together the contents of a hundred different family scrapbooks.
The same is true of objects.
They are asking for support and help in compiling this history:
http://www.ss.mtu.edu/faculty/Scarlett/Research/UPP/UPPsupport.htm
We will be setting up a similar page on Adopt-A-Mine for those who wish to become Miners of History…
“Increased support from public relations and management staff would also be needed to insulate those doing the actual work from the public, media and Congressional scrutiny/criticism.” Quote from internal BLM document discussing euthanasia of wild horses.
BLM discussed strategies to kill horses without having to perform a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) assessment.
They discussed killing horses in numbers of 1200-2000 per year to avoid greater criticism and scrutiny from Congress, media and the public.
The BLM noted the public would be prohibited from viewing euthanasia.
There is fear among horse advocates that such activity is already taking place or will take place soon.
Seems they are going to treat horses the way they already are treating mine openings….
http://network.bestfriends.org/arizona/news/34734.html
http://www.conquistadorprogram.org/blm__court_documents_on_wild_horses
This BLM website allows you to visually display public lands data on map overlays:
http://www.geocommunicator.gov/GeoComm/index.shtm
The NLIS National Integrated Land System
BLM in partnership with the USFS…
Lots of map data here, but the learning curve to effectively use this tool is steep.
Silver City and Mammoth closure lists and spotting map-click to download
Silver City Project Map April 2009Update: Detailed Project Map shows which sections and mines will be targeted for backfilling…
This info from the Office of Surface Mining, which apparently allows the public to access abandoned mine information from this website It is a website used by AML managers to input data on their AML projects. The data includes general location information, topo names, number of vertical and horizontal openings, and costs to reclaim. This data includes previous closure information as well as future closures. Use of this website database is not restricted, and is information paid for by the public through their tax dollars. However, they first warn the public that “Only trained AML reclamation specialists should enter these mines.” Then another screen warns “Do not trespass on private property to get to an AML site.” Eventually clicking through the continue buttons will get you to a screen that allows you to find out facts like these:
Silver City Utah has 150 vertical openings that will cost 3.75 Million dollars to reclaim. $3.75M is 10X the amount previously spent on any one mining district. Silver City is S of Eureka and just S of Mammoth, Utah. This is going to be a huge project and going to make one construction company very happy to get the bid. However, more information is needed on why it is costing SO much to reclaim these vertical shafts.
UPDATE: Although called the Silver City Project, all of the mines just E of Mammoth are included in this project. Are they proposing to backfill the Mammoth Mine’s Glory Hole?? As of now, only Spectrum Engineering knows for sure…
Ore Deposits of Utah
Jun 19
Ore Deposits of Utah is THE definitive volume on the mining history and geology of Utah. We’ve scanned it in and OCRed the document. In two parts:
This is the MS PowerPoint [Ppt] presentation by Russ Hartill as given to the Mining History Association Conference in Creede, Colorado June, 2009. Abandoned Mine Reclamation Program in Utah Among the highlights in this presentation is a slide showing that of the estimated total number of mine openings, only UTAH’s AMRP believes that all 17K of their mines are both public safety hazrds AND environmentally degraded.
In a recent meeting with John Baza and Dana Dean (Head of the DOGM and Mining Programs), Mojave Underground attempted discussions to protect AML sites.
Mojave Underground has been fighting against the DOGM for almost 2 years, becoming more and more agressive against the DOGM and its reclamation techniques. We recently rethought our approach, and presented to the DOGM a “Some Mines are Dangerous, but Some Aren’t” approach. We willingly accept that many mines will be closed regardless of efforts, but perhaps we can keep high priority sites open and left alone. They seem a little more open to this approach.
In our meeting, we discussed Memos of Understanding between exploration groups and the State of Utah to document mine interiors before they are reclaimed. Further meetings are planned to be held to discuss this in more detail.
Adopt a Mine Launched!
Jun 10
The Adopt a Mine program is proud to annouce its launch. A lot of time and thought has gone into the program to help preserve historically and geologically significant mines. Let us know what you think!
Adopt your Mine Now!
