Monitoring Utah's AMR Program

Are mine closures only about public safety? Or are there multiple agendas for closing off mineshafts and removing debris from "abandoned" mines, mining camps and historic sites throughout Utah?

Are bats recieving more attention and protection than the historical record these sites contain? (The Office of Surface Mining even has a bat webpage and a link that shows you how to build a bat house) [However, I could find no mention of historical resources relating to surface mining on the OSM website] What about the historical record in Utah--are these surveys and information and data obtained through taxpayer dollars available to review by the public? Where and how can the taxpaying public who paid for these surveys find out more about this heritage of ours?

Are the owners of these lands with rich mining heritage contained thereon giving enough attention and respect and sensitivity to history or are they categorizing orebins and headframes as "junk" and debris to be removed and disposed of? 

An example of the Utah AMR Program destroying an historic headframe

Some questions:

Why are funds from coal mining being used to close hardrock mines in Utah?

Current Projects Be sure to check this page often, it is geared toward contractors who wish to bid on projects to close mine openings and inventory resources within mining camps.

Utah's AMR Website

Utah sponsored the 2002 AML Conference. There is a list of participants and the full proceedings. The section on politics is quite interesting, and the closest anyone ever got to discussing the impact of AML on historic resources can be found here. While the proceedings' authors and titles are all detailed on the webpage, the links either go to a "no-paper" default, where it is announced that the author did not submit a paper for the website (and a surprisingly large number of authors did not submit one) or else link to  .pdf files.  It is  neverthless a good site to "mine." Particularly interesting is the paper on Brownfields development in Silver City, New Mexico. [the Gateway project was a Utah Brownfield grant site] and the announcement that the  EPA Rocky Mountain Regional Hazardous Substance Research Center (RMRHSRC) has been formed.

OSMR's Utah page

1998 Findings from OSM Oversight Review

List of states involved in AMR

MSHA Portal to other AMR programs throughout the west

An example of great cooperation among the Wyoming Abandoned Mines Program and various history groups in the preservation and stabilization of the Tumlum Mine shafthouse and mine headrame at the ghost town of Kirwin, Wyoming.

For a free hardhat sticker, go here

Watch a big bad mining company almost kill a poor little bunny in this OSM animated short. [And to think taypayer dollars paid to produce this! ]