County planning will aim to streamline mining regulations

Upcoming meetings in February and March will go over LUC updates

By: Sophie Stuber, Telluride Daily Planet

With recent changes to federal regulations and a higher demand for minerals in green energy technology, interest in mining activity is increasing again in southwestern Colorado. San Miguel County has observed a rise in mining exploration applications in the past few years, according to the county planning commission. With higher demand, local government is working to streamline mining regulations to protect the environment and increase oversight of “ancillary activities,” including transporting materials and site recovery. This will involve updating the county’s Land Use Code (section 6-3) regulations.

Discussions are in early stages for the county’s mining draft regulations. During an upcoming Open Space Commission meeting on Feb. 24, County Planning Director Kaye Simonson will be presenting updates to the Land Use Code (LUC) amendments. Later on, the BOCC is next scheduled to discuss the LUC updates at an upcoming meeting in March. An updated draft will be released in early February, with a three week review period before the March meeting.

Local environmental organizations are welcoming the planned changes to the county’s mining regulations.

“Sheep Mountain Alliance is grateful that the Planning Commission and Board of County Commissioners will implement a rigorous update to this code section,” Sheep Mountain Alliance program director Ruthie Boyd told the Daily Planet.

The structure of the draft mining regulations is similar to the solar regulations that were finalized in 2024, but solar rules focus mainly on siting and construction, while mining protections will focus on the impacts of operations, such as blasting, noise, vibration and environmental impacts. The county’s code will also address milling and processing.

Riparian habitats are one zone that Sheep Mountain Alliance would like to see prioritized in the LUC updates, particularly along the Dolores River, San Miguel River and their tributaries.

“Mining operations near river corridors can have many detrimental impacts for riparian habitat and water quality, and greatly increase the risk of toxic spills into waterways,” Boyd said. “While rigorous remediation efforts can diminish these impacts, the best way to prevent mining operations from contaminating waterways and riparian habitats is to impose an appropriate buffer between mining projects and riparian zones.”

With the updated regulations, applicants for mining permits will be required to provide reports, plans and studies that analyze the impacts of their project and to provide a plan to mitigate those impacts.

The draft mining regulations will also define “mining operations” to encompass hardrock minerals, construction materials and coal. Federal and state regulations have different rules for each. The aim of the county’s new mining regulations is to mitigate the impacts of development and mineral exploration — while complementing and not competing with federal and state regulations. These mining regulations mainly pertain to private activity on federal land.

The focus is reducing any harmful effects of mining activity, not whether to authorize mining or mineral exploration on federal land.

“The intent of the mining regulations is to mitigate the impacts of the proposed activity,” San Miguel County Planning Director Kaye Simonson said in January.

On federal land, mining and exploratory applications do require environment protection plans involving wildlife managers like CPW, and the county’s updated regulations will also likely incorporate robust wildlife protections.

Sheep Mountain Alliance would like to see a quarter-mile buffer for new mining operations around protected areas and critical habitat zones, Boyd noted.

“SMA is concerned that mining in proximity to these protected and critical habitat areas will disrupt wildlife and important ecosystems,” Boyd said.

Current protected and critical habitat zones include the McKenna Peak Wilderness Study Area, Dry Creek Basin State Wildlife Area and the Dolores River Canyon Wilderness Study Area.

The county’s mining regulations will build on other projects and rules to protect threatened species like the Gunnison sage-grouse, including the BLM Gunnison sage-grouse Resource Management Plan (RMP), which built a framework to conserve and improve habitat for the bird on BLM lands. An amendment in October 2024 extends the buffer zone around Gunnison sage-grouse habitat to one-mile, establishes three new Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC) and limits surface disturbances in sage-grouse habitats.

In March 2024, a group of seven environmental organizations, including San Juans Citizens Alliance, Sheep Mountain Alliance and Uranium Watch, requested a temporary moratorium on special use permits for mining and mineral exploration in the West End while the LUC is updated.

San Miguel County had previously authorized a moratorium on new applications for commercial solar and utility projects while updating the solar LUC, but a moratorium was not granted for mining and mineral exploration permits. Simonson said in March that she did not support a temporary mining moratorium.

“I am not in favor of a moratorium. We are not the primary permit-er on this. There are federal and state permits. If we put a moratorium on this, we would end up in litigation,” Simonson said. “I understand the concern, as we have seen an uptick in exploration, but I would not recommend a moratorium at this time.”

The updated mining regulations will also offer more clarification about milling and processing, including application requirements and review standards for wastewater collection and treatment.

In a series of executive orders, President Donald Trump moved to boost domestic energy and critical mineral mining development by revoking certain permitting regulations. Trump’s declared “National Energy Emergency” aims to “identify all agency actions that impose undue burdens on the domestic mining and processing of non-fuel minerals and undertake steps to revise or rescind such actions” and expedite the permitting process, among other moves to try to establish the United States’ “mineral dominance.”

The San Miguel County Planning Commission is now in a work period to review the current draft regulations. Once reviewed, the county will publish a press release with new dates and deadlines for the next public comment period.

Read the story here.