Pinpointing a Historical Hazard

Frolicking in the woods behind the family home last spring, David Stam’s twin 10-year-old daughters stumbled on an ominous legacy of the Gold Rush.

A hundred feet up a hillside, Gabrielle and Danielle Stam discovered an old mine shaft lurking amid the pines, three stories deep--and dangerous.

“I was stunned,” recalled Stam, who moved his family to the 2-acre homestead five years ago. “Then all I felt was relief that none of the kids had fallen in.”

State officials ceremoniously plugged the pit Wednesday, the 152nd anniversary of the gold strike, as they launched a campaign to highlight the dangers posed by thousands of abandoned mines throughout California.

While the girls looked on with their father and brother Kyler, 13, crews blocked off the 5-foot-wide hole with a hard plug of polyurethane foam.

But there are plenty of others still out there.

A recent study by the state Department of Conservation estimated that 39,000 abandoned mines are scattered along the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, across Southland deserts and through other mineral-rich swaths of the state. Four out of five are considered dangerous.

As civilization pushes ever farther into California’s rural reaches, the old mines pose a burgeoning public health threat.

“This is a growing problem as people move out into these rural areas,” said Darryl Young, Department of Conservation director.

The hazards are many. Deep shafts can gobble up the unwary. Tunnels can unexpectedly collapse. Poisonous gases or even a lack of air can prove lethal to amateur explorers. Toxins are abundant. Rattlesnakes and other wild animals inside pose a threat.

In a typical year, half a dozen people die in abandoned mines, authorities said, and dozens more are injured.

“The only way this seems to get public attention is when there’s a catastrophe,” said Rich Rajkovich as he helped put the foam plug in place. “And usually it’s little kids.”

Although the state has a hotline to report abandoned mines ([877] OLD-MINE), there is virtually no money to pay the costs of plugging even a fraction of the most dangerous shafts and tunnels gouged into the earth by prospectors with pick and shovel. About half the mines are on federal land, and most of the rest are on private property.

The Department of Conservation hopes for an appropriation in next year’s budget that will help block some of the more dangerous mines. But, Young said, “There is not one simple solution.”

Consider the meandering bureaucratic path Stam traversed to put a lid on the hazard behind his backyard.

He called officials in Placer County, who politely directed him to the federal Bureau of Land Management, which controls the land where the shaft sits. But the bureau suggested another agency. Finally, Stam was passed on to the state Department of Conservation. Though lacking any specific pool of money to help, agency officials took pity on Stam and scraped together the $2,500 to hire a Montana outfit that plugs old mines.

“I’m just glad they chose this one,” said Stam, “for my family’s sake.”