Bureau Of Mines Marks End Of Era Offers Last Research Reports To Annual Mining Conference

With bittersweet sighs, Bureau of Mines staffers Tuesday outlined their research for an appreciative group of miners for the last time.

Delegates of the 101st Northwest Mining Association sat absorbed in topics like “Mining-Induced Behavior in Permafrost Gravels.” Geologists and engineers of the bureau laid out their findings, topping the mountain of work the 85-year-old agency has produced.

Already bleeding personnel, the bureau offices in Spokane will close Jan. 8. A budget-cutting Congress sealed the offices’ fate this summer, eliminating the Bureau of Mines, scattering some of its minor functions to other departments and slashing 1,200 jobs nationwide.

“It’s not been good for us,” said Rod Rosenkranz, deputy chief at the bureau. Only about five of about 140 workers who stand to lose their jobs have found other government work, and none of those jobs are in Spokane, he said.

“A lot of this work we do here will never be carried on,” Rosenkranz said. It’ll just be lost.”

Robert Hoekzema, a resource evaluation office for the bureau, wondered to the audience of mining executives, engineers and mineral speculators just what the budget cutters have saved.

Not having the bureau saves taxpayers $100 million, he said. But the country loses the science that created dozens of patents by the bureau each year for new technology and methods of safely mining metals.

Few in the bureau believe that the science the offices provided nationwide will be continued by private industry. Many of the metallurgy and geology studies are just too specialized to have much interest to non-government firms.

Hoekzema blamed both a penny-pinching Republican Congress and an administration that viewed the bureau as too much of a mining advocate.

“Our going away has mostly been the product of political opposites agreeing on one issue,” he said. “I always thought the bureau needed to strike a balance between being an advocate for the industry and working the environmental side.”

The bureau’s role in educating the public about the mineral industry’s contribution will be lost as well, said Elaine Cullen of the bureau. Mining has the lowest industry approval rating in the nation, according to a 1994 study, lower even than tobacco, she said.

“When we first surveyed people about what they know about the mining industry, 50 percent said they didn’t know a thing,” she said. In the 1994 study, 60 percent said they didn’t know a thing.

Local mining companies such as Coeur d’Alene-based Hecla Mining Co. had become concerned about the bureau’s green leanings of late, but will miss the bureau’s help with mine methods and new safety technology.

The mine safety aspects of the bureau will remain under the Department of Energy, saving about 20 of the bureau’s 160 jobs.

While many of the government downsizings were done to make government more efficient, closing the bureau may make other agencies even more lethargic.

“Our work is going to take a lot longer without them,” said David Fredley, assistant director of minerals and geology for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “They did about $3-5 million worth of work for us each year. Nobody’s going to come in and replace that work - it’ll just never get done.”

Bureau staffers attending the convention said the mood at both the Western Field Office and the Geological Survey building that make up Spokane’s Bureau of Mines was subdued but busy as the end draws near.

Rosenkranz said the workers are busy preparing the office’s entire body of work to be passed on to other agencies, and stored so that mining companies can get to it.

“A lot of this work just won’t be picked up,” Rosenkranz said. “It’s just a shame.”

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: MINE CONFERENCE HAS INTERNATIONAL FLAVOR The Northwest Mining Association Convention may want to think about calling its big annual gathering the United Nations of Mining if its increasing international presence continues to grow. The 101st edition of the association’s meeting kicked off in earnest Tuesday with multiple accents heard through the Spokane Convention Center. Delegates from more than 20 different countries are in Spokane this week to network with some of the more than 3,000 miners expected to attend. Two groups from China are drawing particular interest from the convention organizers. One group has visa problems but should arrive by Thursday. Zheng Song Yan, the general manager of Fujian Coal Industry General Corp. in the Fujian Province of China, made his first trip to the United States just to build relationships with other mining companies in hopes of gaining new methods and modern equipment for his company. “We want to share new technology,” he said through an interpreter. “We want to invite foreign investment in Fujian Province.” Yan’s coal company employs 60,000 Chinese, and makes a variety of products, like light machines and buttons, he said. China continues to liberalize its foreign investment laws, he said. The same goes in Indonesia, said Ris Aliansyah, the Indonesian consul who is here to woo companies to mine his country’s sizeable deposits of coal and gold. “Since 1994, we now allow foreign investors to own 100 percent of a project,” he said. Resource giant Freeport McMoran Corp. recently invested in Indonesia, and other large companies have followed, he said. Half a world away in Sweden, the government there has reformed its mining laws and asked foreign companies to start exploring for new minerals, said Sven Arvidsson of the Swedish Division of Mineral Policy. Swedish mining makes our domestic mines pale. The oldest mine in Sweden closed just two years ago, after about 1,000 years of production, Arvidsson said. “Historically, mining was what ran our country,” he said. “Now we’re inviting investment to continue the industry.” Eric Torbenson