Unwelcome Blast from the Past

For $5, you can buy an Adventure Pass that entitles you to park your car in the Los Padres National Forest and take a hike for one day.

For $5, Pacific Custom Materials Inc. could be able to buy two acres in or near the Sespe Wilderness Area, deep within that same national forest, if it can prove that minerals are present and can be removed and sold at a reasonable profit. The company holds 23 mining claims there totaling 460 acres, which it could buy for $2.50 per acre under the terms of an 1872 mining law. It started digging last week as a step toward exercising those claims.

The difference between what $5 buys a nature-loving taxpayer and what it buys a mining company--in this case, the Glendale-based subsidiary of billion-dollar-a-year Texas Industries Inc.--is precisely what infuriates foes of the U.S. Forest Service’s experimental Adventure Pass program. If the national forests need more money for maintenance and patrols, as they clearly do, it should come from the companies that use public land for mining, logging and grazing at bargain rates.

Environmentalists are outraged by Pacific Custom Materials’ attempt to start mining clay five years after Congress gave the Sespe the highest level of protection by designating it wilderness.

The mining, they say, will disrupt the ecosystem wherever the company digs in the virtually untouched territory of forested peaks, deep canyons and flowing streams. And the very idea of putting public wilderness land back in private hands for such a pittance is especially galling at a time when the Forest Service is shaking down its most loyal supporters for user fees.

the Sespe Wilderness Area is part of a network established by the 1964 Wilderness Act to provide opportunities for solitude and primitive recreation. Roads, vehicles, air-craft and buildings are typically prohibited in these areas, but valid mining claims that predate the wilderness act can be pursued.

A number of obstacles could thwart the company’s plan to mine the clay, which is used to make fireproof roof tiles, skid-resistant highway surfaces and lightweight concrete for high-rise buildings. The company must pass environmental reviews before it begins full-scale mining and it would need to repair damaged areas afterward. The plan must be approved by the federal Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service and Ventura County, then reviewed by the secretary of interior.

The staking of mining claims under 19th century laws intended to open up the West conflicts sharply with today’s widely shared desire to preserve pristine natural areas for the 21st century and beyond. While the various agencies that review this plan must follow the law and be fair to the claim holders, they should bear in mind how much the world and its sense of what is valuable has changed since 1872--even if some of the laws haven’t.