For minerals on public land, we adopted a "finders keepers" rule: Anyone who found valuable minerals could claim them free and clear. For a nominal price under the law that made mineral development a priority use of the public estate, they could also take title to land around the deposit.
Fast-forward 136 years to the post-industrial 21st century. After more than a century of rapid growth, the West has been transformed from its frontier origins of mining, ranching and logging. This "New West" of modern, diversified economies has been fueled by a constant influx of new people and businesses seeking the amenities and quality of life associated with the region's young cities and its spectacular natural landscapes.
In my home state of Montana, this economic shift has been dramatic. The "bumper-sticker" moniker for Montana during the first half of the 20th century was the "Treasure State," reflecting the dominant role mining once played. The state flag has the phrase "gold and silver" (in Spanish!) on it along with a crossed pick and shovel.
But that is not how Montana now presents itself to the world. We are now "Big Sky Country" and "The Last Best Place."
In recent years, Montana voters have twice shocked the mining industry by approving initiatives banning cyanide heap-leach mining, the primary technology currently used in gold mining. In 1972 we replaced the state constitution written for us by mining interests in the 19th century with one that declares Montanans have a constitutional right to a "clean and healthy environment."
This political shift simply mirrored the change in the Montana economy. Since 1970 two-thirds of the thousands of metal mining and smelting jobs have disappeared due to international market forces. Rather than crippling the Montana economy, the demise of mining led to creation of 340,000 new jobs.
Now only about one out of every 300 Montana jobs and one out of every 600 Western-state jobs is in metal mining. In these diverse, modern and dynamic economies, it makes no economic sense to give metal mining priority in the use of public lands that make up almost half of the Western landscape.
In fact, mining is increasingly a threat to local economies in a region where charismatic natural landscapes play such an important role in attracting new people and economic activity and in supporting recreational activities that are vital to the regional economy.
The ravaged mountains, the yawning open pits, the pollution produced by the use of toxic chemicals, and the acid mine drainage that is often a byproduct of mining undercut the very basis of Western prosperity.
Recognizing this threat, the people and political leaders of the West frequently battle to modify or block the worst of the proposed new mines, those sited in the most sensitive and unique natural areas, those most likely to cause nearly permanent pollution problems and those using the most destructive technologies.
Unfortunately, those efforts to protect our prosperity and quality of life are often frustrated by the 1872 Mining Law that continues to give mining precedence over all other community values.
The U.S. House last year moved to end this destructive bias by passing comprehensive reform legislation that would finally end the mid-19th century privilege that metal mining has enjoyed.
Under this badly needed mining law reform, local communities could petition the federal government to close environmentally sensitive areas to metal mining claims. Federal land managers could finally block mines that pose unacceptable environmental threats. Prized federal lands such as national monuments and national parks would be closed to metal mining. And reclamation would be required of all mines.
For Westerners this legislation promises to protect our 21st century economies. For all Americans, it would shield from degradation some of our most cherished natural wonders.
The House has taken an important first step. Now it's time for the Senate to act.
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* THOMAS MICHAEL POWER is research professor and professor emeritus in the economics department at the University of Montana.
