Anastasia Hufham’s recent article (“Utah wants less money from companies starting controversial mining projects. Here’s why.”) gives a good summary of recent, mining-related activity by the Utah Trust Lands Administration. Unfortunately, the article also implies that the TLA entered into some mining agreements that will unreasonably benefit the mining companies involved. This is not the case.
I have worked in the mining industry for 50 years — 22 years in operations and 28 in education. I was appointed to the TLA’s Board of Trustees in 2022, and recently reviewed the agreements in question, as well as the methods used by the TLA staff in negotiating those agreements. The TLA staff completed a detailed review of the mining royalties currently levied by state and national agencies and private land owners. That report was the most comprehensive document on royalties that I have seen in many years. It provided the starting point in the negotiations in question here.
Hufham’s article quotes an employee of the Great Basin Water Network, expressing the opinion that the royalties in question show a bias that is unfairly beneficial to mining companies and is thus detrimental to the state of Utah.
This is entirely incorrect. Those royalties were negotiated to optimize the benefits to the state and to account for the need of the mining companies to operate profitably.
Michael G. Nelson, Murray
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