Skamania County has two mining fights going at once. A Canadian company wants to drill toward an open-pit copper mine near Mount St. Helens, and a gravel quarry on the west end could put five hundred truck trips a day onto Highway 14. But underneath the copper fight sits a law from 1872 that almost nobody mentions, and it decides who gets paid. This episode covers recent discussions at the Skamania County Board of Commissioners, Skamania County Community Development, and the long history they're inheriting.

In This Episode:

• Why hardrock minerals on federal land pay no royalty, to anyone
• The Nevada senator who wrote the law, and why it never expired
• What happened the last time this promise met a place like ours
• Coal, oil and gas pay. Copper doesn't. Why the difference matters to the county budget
• Butte, Montana and the bill that outlasted the boom
• What three Montana councils actually won from a mining company, and what Skamania could ask for
• Which of these two fights Skamania can actually shape, and the July 30 deadline to do it

Resources & Links:

• Read the full written Dispatch: https://skamaniadispatch.com
• Comment on the Storedahl Quarry draft EIS (due July 30): https://www.skamaniacounty.org/departments-offices/community-development/storedahl-quarry
• The Stillwater Good Neighbor Agreement (Northern Plains Resource Council): https://northernplains.org/good-neighbor-agreement/
• Montana's Hard Rock Mining Impact Board, on making mines pay local government costs: https://comdev.mt.gov/Programs-and-Boards/Hard-Rock-Mining-Impact-Board/Hard-Rock-Impact-Plan-Information
• Prior coverage, "A Mine, a Closed School, and a County Locked in a Box": https://skamania-dispatch.ghost.io/a-mine-a-closed-school-and-a-county-locked-in-a-box-skaman/
• The law itself, 30 U.S.C. §22 (Cornell Legal Information Institute): https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/30/22
• GAO on hardrock royalties: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-08-849r
• Interior's 2025 Critical Minerals List: https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/interior-department-releases-final-2025-list-critical-minerals
• National Archives, Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868: https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/american_originals/1868.html
• EPA, Silver Bow Creek / Butte Area Superfund site: https://www.epa.gov/butte/background
• Failed reforms to outdated hardrock mining law https://www.hcn.org/articles/south-mining-2-democrats-kill-chances-of-reforming-the-outdated-hardrock-mining-law/

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