Trump administration opens millions of acres of California desert to mining

The California desert is the latest target of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's campaign to promote resource extraction on public lands across the West.

Zinke's Interior Department said this week it would allow mining on 1.3 million acres, or more than 2,000 square miles, across the California desert, reversing an Obama-era effort to protect those lands. Vast swaths of Utah's Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments were similarly opened to mining this month, following President Trump's decision to dramatically reduce the size of those monuments.

In California, the areas that will be open to mining include low desert lands bordering Joshua Tree National Park in Riverside County, high desert areas north of Pioneertown in San Bernardino County, lands flanking Death Valley National Park in Inyo County, and huge stretches of eastern Imperial County. Starting March 9, mining companies looking for rare-earth metals, gold, sand and other minerals can stake claim to those areas.

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The opening of those places to mining follows the Trump administration's announcement last week that it would reconsider an Obama-era plan to protect millions of acres of public land in the California desert. The Interior Department said it hopes to allow more solar and wind farms, off-road vehicle driving, mining and grazing on those lands, which are home to desert tortoises, bighorn sheep, Joshua trees and other iconic species.

The California desert plan was the result of a decade-long effort by state and federal officials to strike the right balance between conservation, renewable energy projects and recreational activities like off-roading across 10 million acres of federal land, spanning seven counties. Conservationists see Zinke's decision to allow mining on some of those lands as a sign the Trump administration may unwind the entire desert plan, throwing the future of the region's treasured landscapes and fragile ecosystems into doubt.

Mariana Maguire, an associate director for conservation at the Conservation Lands Foundation, called Zinke's actions "a real slap in the face to the state of California, to local input and to a process that actually worked in achieving a balanced result."

"This opening up is just a huge example of hypocrisy and a huge waste of time in taxpayer dollars," said Maguire, who lived in the town of Joshua Tree until late last year.

President Trump has made resource extraction on public lands a top priority, repeatedly promising to achieve American "energy dominance" by cutting regulations that block coal mining and oil and gas drilling. He also signed an executive order on mining and mineral production in December, calling for federal officials to develop "a strategy to reduce the nation's reliance on critical minerals" imported from other countries.

That order followed a report from the U.S. Geological Survey that found the U.S. doesn't produce many of the minerals its economy depends on. China, for instance, is the source of 90 percent of the world's rare-earth metals, which are used in industrial and military technologies. Most of the world's lithium, which powers batteries for cell phones and electric cars, comes from Chile and Australia. Russia and South Africa are the biggest suppliers of platinum-group elements, which are used by the chemicals industry.

"The United States must not remain reliant on foreign competitors like Russia and China for the critical minerals needed to keep our economy strong and our country safe," Trump said in a statement accompanying his executive order.

RELATED: Trump shrinks Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments

But as with Bears Ears and Grand Staircase in Utah, it's not clear how much mineral production will actually happen in the California desert lands newly opened to mining.

The Sonoran Institute, a conservation group, published a report in 2015 examining the mining economy in the California desert. The report shows that many areas with high mineral potential were not actually excluded from mining claims by the California desert plan, known as the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan. Many of the best mineral deposits are on private lands, rather than the federal lands protected under that plan, according to the Sonoran Institute's senior director of programs, John Shepard.

"The notion that somehow the (desert plan) was significantly constraining mining, I think, is fiction," Shepard said.

Shepard is less concerned that the 1.3 million newly opened acres will actually be mined, and more concerned that federal land managers won't prioritize conservation in those areas. He said conservation, not mining, is "the highest and best economic use" of those lands, since outdoor recreation drives so much economic activity in the desert.

“It makes a lot more sense to protect lands than open them up to mineral development," Shepard said.

RELATED: Trump could open California desert lands to more solar, wind farms

The 1.3 million acres being opened to mining are a subset of 4 million acres designated as National Conservation Lands under the California desert plan. Zinke's Interior Department says lands with that designation "offer the American people exceptional opportunities for hunting, solitude, wildlife viewing, fishing, history exploration, scientific research, and a wide range of traditional uses." (The agency described them differently under President Obama, saying National Conservation Lands "epitomize the remarkable values that public lands have to offer" and "represent the diversity of landscapes, cultures, and experiences that are the building blocks of the United States.")

In December 2016, Obama's Interior Department proposed banning new mining claims on one-third of the new National Conservation Lands in the California desert. Federal officials had identified those 1.3 million acres as worthy of further protection because of their "significant landscapes with outstanding cultural, biological, and scientific values." Interior said it would solicit public input and study the environmental impacts of its proposal, with new mining claims blocked for two years while that process played out.

A few weeks later, President Trump took office. The public comment process never happened, and neither did the environmental analysis. Despite that, Zinke's Bureau of Land Management "concluded that impacts of future mineral exploration and mining, subject to existing environmental regulations, do not pose a significant threat to the protection of cultural, biological, and scientific values," the agency said in a statement this week, announcing that the proposed mineral withdrawal had been canceled.

"Based on the likelihood that there would be little significant mining-related disturbance to these lands...withdrawal at such a large scale does not appear to be necessary to achieve the purpose for which the national conservation lands were designated,” Jerry Perez, California director of the Bureau of Land Management, said in a statement.

It's not clear how federal officials made that judgment after canceling the environmental analysis planned by the Obama administration. The Bureau of Land Management wouldn't make Perez available for an interview, and a spokesperson said the agency would have no comment beyond its press release and a Federal Register notice.

Phil Hanceford, conservation director for the Wilderness Society, pointed out that years of environmental analysis informed the California desert plan. He said the Trump administration should have done its own environmental study if it wanted to know whether the lands could be safely mined. But he's not surprised that didn't happen.

"We know the administration has really one focused priority when it comes to our public lands, and that is as far away from conservation and compromise and concern about climate change as you can get," Hanceford said.

"The threat is very real that these lands could be mined and essentially removed from conservation status," he added. "If you're looking at long-term conservation, you're never quire secure or safe from the potential for mining to always come back."

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Sammy Roth writes about energy and the environment for The Desert Sun. He can be reached at sammy.roth@desertsun.com, (760) 778-4622 and @Sammy_Roth.