RECLAIMING NEVADA: Division targets abandoned mines

In July 1998, six young men armed with just a few small flashlights and a video camera ignored danger signs, crawled through barbed wire, pried open metal grates and entered the abandoned Brougher Divide Mine near Tonopah.

They laughed about all the things they knew they were not supposed to be doing, said Bill Durbin, chief of Nevada's Commission on Mineral Resources' Abandoned Mine Lands Program.

It could have been a segment on "America's Funniest Home Videos," but it wasn't. And it wasn't funny. One man was injured when he fell down a winze and another was lost for seven hours.

Entering abandoned mines is serious business and extremely dangerous.

About the only good thing to come from the entire episode was the videotape. Durbin said it is shown along with the division's "Stay Out and Stay Alive" video to emphasize the dangers of exploring abandoned mines.

Educating the public about the dangers in and around abandoned mines is half of the two-part Abandoned Mine Lands Program, started in 1987 by the state Legislature. The other component involves identifying and ranking the hazardous mine features, and then barricading them from the public.

As of Oct. 18, the division had identified and ranked 9,093 hazardous mine openings statewide, including 1,510 in Clark County. Of those in Clark County, Durbin said 682 are "orphans," meaning they are on public property, have been completely abandoned or whose ownership cannot be traced through legal documents.

The patented claims, those with legal ownership, are notified by the division and given options about how to secure the hazardous openings.

"Generally, we get a good response from the people we notify," he said. "Some of the patented mining claims belong to people who have never been in Nevada. Their claims have been passed on through the generations and were won in poker games."

Durbin estimates there are 50,000 potentially hazardous openings throughout the state, and 200,000 to 300,000 mining elements such as pits and shallow trenches.

A hazardous opening can include anything from a prospecting pit to a shaft more than 3,000 feet deep. He said the most dangerous openings are adits (horizontal openings that don't go all the way through a mountain) with winzes (vertical openings that begin underground).

A variety of life-threatening hazards in mines include falling down unseen winzes, falling through rotted and decayed wood atop winzes, succumbing to bad air created when rotting wood emits carbon monoxide, being hit by falling debris, contracting hantavirus from exposure to mouse and rat droppings, confronting poisonous snakes and spiders, and disturbing bats or old explosives.

The mine openings are ranked with a two-part, 10-point system determined by the type of hazard and its proximity to a public area, Durbin said. Those hazards with the most points receive top priority for containment. Any site where there has been an incident is placed at the top of the list.

To date, 6,741 openings, including 957 (363 orphans) in Clark County, have been secured by the property owners, the division or through volunteer efforts. Statewide, Eagle Scout projects have secured 161 openings.

Durbin said the Abandoned Mine Lands Program was started at the urging of a woman whose son and one of his friends were killed while exploring an abandoned mine in 1979.

The division's efforts seem to be effective. Since the program began, there have been only 22 incidents, five involving dogs, resulting in nine fatalities and 21 injuries. There were no injuries or fatalities in 1994 or 2001. The most recent incident occurred in late October when a 30-year-old man was injured after falling about 30 feet down a shaft in Sandy Valley.

According to Durbin, the man was part of a group on a company scavenger hunt and entered a mine labeled "no," indicating the treasure was not hidden inside.

The program is funded entirely by fees paid by the mining industry and through grants from the Bureau of Land Management. Durbin, a geologist, is the only full-time member of the division. He is assisted by six others, as well as interns -- mining students at the University of Nevada, Reno -- for the past three summers.

"The interns really boosted the number of sites we discovered and secured," he said.

The preferred method of securing abandoned sites is by backfilling the openings, however, it's very costly and very time consuming, Durbin said. Realistically, most sites are secured by using barbed wire fencing around the opening's perimeter and posting warning signs. He said that method averages about $500 per opening.

Helping mitigate the problem is legislation requiring those seeking mining permits to rehabilitate the land once operations cease, as well as to protect natural resources including animals and plants during mining operations.

The education component includes visits to all fourth- and eighth-grade classrooms in Nevada, as well as hands-on workshops for teachers. Durbin said he helped design the curriculums along with the state's department of education to coincide with lessons in science, Nevada history, geography and social studies.

In addition, "Stay Out and Stay Alive" brochures are sent to every fourth- and eighth-grade student at the beginning of each school year.

Although they do their best to warn people about the dangers of abandoned mines, Durbin said it's important that people use common sense and take responsibility for their actions. He said children especially don't think about the risks to people called in for rescue missions.

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