Justices to Hear Attempt to Halt Big Sur Mining

Steven Woolpert has big plans for Mt. Pico Blanco.

When the 33-year-old mining company president looks at the mountain, he sees “a majestic deposit” of pure limestone that could be used for everything from sidewalks to aspirin. He says the mountain holds a billion tons of the valuable rock, enough for at least 50 years of mining.

When many others look at Pico Blanco, however, they see one of the most majestic features in Big Sur. State and county officials are so opposed to development along California 1, which runs along this scenic coastline, that they have even stopped homeowners from putting satellite dishes in their backyards.

State regulations probably would block Woolpert’s mining project too, but for one fact: It sits on federal forest land.

Frontier ‘Relic’

Under the Mining Act of 1872, which environmentalists call “a relic from frontier days,” a miner who finds a valuable mineral on federal land may stake a claim for $5 an acre and mine it. And that is just what Woolpert intends to do.

All he needs is a go-ahead from the U.S. Supreme Court.

For the high court, the case of California Coastal Commission vs. Granite Rock Co. (85-1200) poses a classic conflict between federal and state law. In addition, it constitutes a key showdown between the law’s contemporary concern with environmental protection and its traditional protection of the pursuit of profit.

As such, the case has aroused keen interest among environmentalists, businesses and local governments nationwide, but particularly in the 11 Western states, where 60% of the land is federally owned.

So far, both sides have won a round in the five-year legal fight.

In 1981, the U.S. Forest Service gave Woolpert’s Granite Rock Co. approval to dig a small quarry to test the local market for selling limestone and to check the feasibility of getting trucks up and down the steep slopes. But work was halted in 1984, when a federal judge ruled that Granite Rock could not mine without a permit from the California Coastal Commission. Because the quarry falls within the designated five-mile-wide coastal strip regulated by the commission, state officials said the company has to meet California’s strict environmental rules before it may proceed.

Last year, however, in a ruling that surprised both environmentalists and officials in the Western states, an appeals court in San Francisco said the state has no right to intervene on federal lands.

The appeals court portrayed the issue as a simple one: “ . . . The power to prohibit the initiation or continuation of mining in national forests (such as the Los Padres National Forest) lies with the (U.S.) Forest Service.”

And the Reagan Administration’s Justice Department, despite its recent talk of “federalism” and the need to give powers back to the states, strongly supports Granite Rock. The law on the books “specifically encourages hard-rock mining on federal lands” and the “fact remains that federal law, rather than state law, ultimately governs the use of federal lands,” U.S. Solicitor General Charles Fried said in his brief to the court.

But attorneys for California, which appealed the case to the high court, say the 19th-Century mining law fundamentally conflicts with the state’s contemporary and legitimate interest in preserving the environment. States must have the authority to regulate in areas where federal authorities have been lax, they have argued.

“This (1872 Mining Act) was an old giveaway program to get people to go out and settle the West. A prospector could walk along with his burro, stake a claim and it was his,” said Linus Masouredis, deputy attorney general of California.

As he and others noted, the mining law was enacted during the era of the Homestead Act and the building of the great railroads to the West, when the giveaway of federal lands was encouraged. The Homestead Act is long gone, but the mining law, although amended in 1955 to exclude common materials such as sand and gravel, remains essentially intact.

The law allows the Interior Department to withdraw from exploration areas such as national parks or military reservations. Last summer, Congress held hearings on a proposal by Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) to limit further development in Big Sur specifically, but no action was taken.

Attorneys Disagreed

As is typical in such hard-fought cases, the attorneys disagree on some basic premises. Lawyers for California say they would permit limited mining and seek only to assure that the project does not ruin a scenic wilderness.

Lawyers for Granite Rock say the proposed mining will not pollute the area, and they contend that the state wants to set rules so stringent that the project will be impractical.

“We’re saying we should be able to set some controls. We don’t think they should be permitted to strip-mine the area, blast into the mountain, pollute the streams and leave the land exhausted,” California’s Masouredis said.

The Little Sur River, one of the nation’s few free-flowing and unpolluted streams, flows beneath Pico Blanco, and coastal commission officials fear that runoff from the quarry will make its way into the river.

“Mining has a lot of spillover effects which could be the worst part--building new roadways, seepage into the ground water, spills into the river,” said Lee Otter, a coastal commission official, who, from a scenic overlook above Highway 1, could point out Granite Rock’s road cutting across the mountain.

On a drive up that narrow dirt roadway, Woolpert called the talk of environmental damage exaggerated and unfair.

Staked 32 Claims

“You could drive down Highway 1 and never know the quarry was back here,” said Woolpert, who is taking over as head of the family business from his father, Bruce. The initial mining began on the back side of Pico Blanco, but Granite Rock has staked 32 claims around the mountain.

“We could take that flank out over 50 years,” said Woolpert, pointing up the side of the mountain. He insists such work could be done carefully without fouling the streams or permanently defacing the mountain.

“I know the concept of quarrying and Big Sur don’t seem to go together,” he continued. “But I have to think about our private property and about this magnificent deposit. This could turn out to be the largest deposit of chemically pure limestone in the country, and I think we should develop it for the use of society.”

Woolpert describes his claims on federal land as private property, but the company does own parts of the mountain and surrounding area that are outside the federal forest and clearly are private property. Why not mine there?

Because, as California attorneys noted in their brief, “Its mining (there) would be indisputably subject to Coastal Act permit regulations . . . .”

The mining company, whose main operations consist of cement making in Watsonville, says it will use 10-ton trucks to bring the limestone down from the mountain and use 18-wheel, 30-ton trucks to haul it up the coast.

Scenic Highway 1, a two-lane roller coaster of a road, is already crowded with an estimated 3 million tourists a year, but Woolpert does not think the big trucks will add significantly to the problem.

“We’ll be behind the Winnebagos, just like everyone else,” he said.

The case has attracted legal briefs from the 11 Western states and the environmental lobby on behalf of California; lawyers representing “free enterprise” advocates and miners have weighed in on the other side.

Oral arguments will be heard in the case on Tuesday, and a ruling can be expected by July.

But some who have followed this controversy say the ultimate resolution will have to come from Congress, not the Supreme Court.

“The taxpayers are giving miners this land and the minerals for nothing. And they can ruin the environment in the process,” said Sandy Hillyer, former executive director of the Big Sur Foundation.

In testimony before a Senate committee in July, Bruce Woolpert said his mining claim in the Los Padres National Forest is worth $100 million, and he will demand that amount in “just compensation” if he is not permitted to proceed with the mining project.

Such a choice posed to the Senate--permit the mining or pay for the value of the claim--shows how the mining law “is badly in need of revision,” Hillyer said. “Congress ought to bring this law into the 20th Century before we move into the 21st.”