Redwood Reader

175. The Pombo Mining Bill, CO2 and Glomalin
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/11/22/news_pf/Opinion/Land_grab_trifecta.shtml
This article in the St. Petersburg (Fla) Times shows the threat of development in even our most nearly “saved” landscapes. For example, BLM assured us that King Range was liable to claims under the old Mining Law but it was suspended and that no valuable minerals were to be found there anyway. Under this bill it would seem you could build a hotel there. Many of these properties have severe restrictions on surface activities seemingly meaningless in event of mining or development. Between this and the removal of federal oversight of ESA on private lands there is no landscape not subject to threat once more.
We note the term “sustainable economic development” as a misleading use of words, since sustainability is based on preservation and renewal of natural resources. On the other hand, cities show enduring economic sustainability through trade. Since we know development impacts landscape wide issues such as runoff, habitat loss, urban interface fire zones and loss of tree cover, we cannot call development sustainable in our usual context.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-ice25nov25,0,7703728,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Last week ice core results were reported that showed the highest levels of CO2 in 650,000 years. There is urgent need to adapt to this condition by taking positive action across the landscape. Industry will slow emissions to some extent but growth must be balanced by mitigating measures like no-till farming and open spaces or we run the risk of calamity. In forestry, it has to be understood that the soil-carbon is disrupted by surface activity, contributing to the problem and undoing natural attenuation.
We also point out methane is at an even higher rate, and this too is our footprint. Methane rich water is being spewed out of dams where it originated in flooded vegetation and soils in concentrations 20 times greater than normal. Another source is livestock. Ozone is also implicated. Ozone and methane are mitigated in plants by CO2, although at a penalty in productivity, as shown in reports at CO2 Science.
http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V8/N47/EDIT.jsp The simplest answer for rising CO2 is glomalin accumulation. Vegetation will modify climate, and we should expect explosive growth from the conditions we have helped create. As this article demonstrates, productivity goes up as temperatures rise, meaning sequestration will occur at an accelerated rate. While far away set asides may benefit the situation, directed growth in optimal landscapes can have major positive impacts, providing some timber, water, climate modification, regulated precipitation and distribution, erosion control, habitat, fish and jobs while providing recreation. This is why we call for a carbon credit scheme based on glomalin accumulation in which landowners are paid not to cut large trees in exchange for annual payments at per ton per acre rate for long term contracts written into deeds like conservation easements that transcend individual ownership but that would make worthy investments. At the same time we call for planners to recognize the continual loss of glomalin rich landscape (as CO2) and removal from the land base available for subsurface carbon storage and water retention.
In the end rolling back protections on our fraction of functioning glomalin producing areas is counterproductive in many ways. We also fail to allow time to heal the landscape and see the return of the conditions that make this place wonderful.

Land-grab trifecta
A congressman who wants to drill in the gulf and weaken the Endangered Species Act offers another bill that puts treasured land at risk of development.
A Times Editorial, St. Petersburg Times
Published November 22, 2005
It could be the biggest land scam ever and the perpetrator is a member of Congress. A bill by Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., would allow anyone to claim ownership of public land for as little as $1,000 an acre under the guise of mining it. Instead of digging for gold, however, the owner could develop the land.
Millions of acres are at risk, often near the nation's most treasured natural areas. Not only would taxpayers lose the use of their land, they would also subsidize the purchase.
The House has already approved the measure - which alters an antiquated mining law - even though some representatives probably didn't know what they were voting on because it was hidden in a budget bill. For Pombo, this completes his land-grab trifecta. He is also pushing to open Florida's Gulf Coast to offshore drilling and to allow private land protected under the Endangered Species Act to be developed with little federal interference.
While the mining law has been used to rip off taxpayers for more than a century, Pombo's version would make it even worse.
Since 1872, mining interests could claim ownership of public land for the purpose of extracting minerals at little cost. It led to abuses such as the mining company that extracted $10-billion worth of gold from a stretch of Nevada desert that cost a mere $10,000. Embarrassed by that giveaway, Congress put a moratorium on the practice in 1994. Pombo's bill would not only end the moratorium, but make it easier to claim land with no intention to mine.
Under the bill's language, anyone could acquire public land for as little as $1,000 per acre and use it for "sustainable economic development." Opponents of the bill say that could be defined as condominiums, ski resorts or casinos.
Pombo says his motive is to help reduce the deficit with the proceeds, but that is a ruse. If Congress wanted to raise tax dollars on mining operations, they would impose a royalty, as they do on oil and coal production. In fact, a modest 8 percent mining royalty would raise twice as much as this garage sale of public land.
Several million acres, mostly in the West, already have mining claims, and nearly half of that is in or near national parks and forests, according to the Environmental Working Group. Millions of acres more could also be at risk. "To our knowledge, it represents the largest land giveaway in modern American history," said Dusty Horwitt, an analyst with the group.
Bill supporters say those seeking to exploit public land by claiming a bogus mining interest would be stopped by federal regulators. That's hardly reassuring. In the Bush administration, the exploiters are now the regulators.
With no companion legislation in the Senate, a final compromise would be worked out in a conference committee that meets in private. Nearly everyone agrees that as a stand-alone bill, the land giveaway would fail. Senate negotiators shouldn't let Pombo do his dirty work under the cover of darkness.
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