Monday, March 31, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
"It would not be in the public interest to seek the federal government's cleanup costs from Mr. Woodie Bell and Mrs. Marian Bell-Hogan at this time," Regional Forester Dale Bosworth said in a news release.
However, the statement added that Bell has not been cleared of liability and that the forest service still could change its mind and revisit the issue at any time.
Bell told the Elko Daily Free Press that he had received no notification of the forest service's decision and questioned why the agency was reserving the right to change its mind.
"It doesn't sound like they have really released me from anything," he said.
The unpatented claims to the Buckskin Mine have been held by the Bell family since 1906 and now are controlled by a partnership that includes Woodie Bell, his mother and other relatives.
Bell said the forest service pressured him to vacate the mining claims and to discontinue using a couple of cabins at the site. He said he believed his refusal led to the agency's demands.
The forest service said last fall it would seek reimbursement of cleanup costs from the rancher. Bell refused to produce 19 years of financial records and the forest service threatened to fine him $25,000 a day until he complied.
At the recommendation of the Nevada Legislative Committee on Public Lands, Bell provided five years' worth of financial information.
Bell said the price tag on cleaning up the mine site somehow escalated from an initial operation costing $62,000 to the eventual $562,000 contract awarded to Nelson Construction of Boise, Idaho.
That was the final cost, although the forest service had speculated at one point that the effort could reach $1 million.
The mine's mill burned in 1937 and no tailings have been produced since then. Mining companies that have leased the property hauled the ore to other locations for processing.
Bell said the problem stemmed from two barrels of cyanide left at the mine site by one of the companies that had leased the property over the years. The building in which the barrels were stored deteriorated in the weather, the barrels corroded and began to leak and two cows drank the poison and died.
Instead of removing the barrels, the forest service surveyed the entire mine site and eventually determined that its old tailings pile also constituted a threat to an adjacent stream and that water flowing out of the old mine adit contained harmful levels of naturally occurring chemicals.
Bell replied that cattle had been drinking from the stream and sportsmen had been eating its fish for years without harmful effects. He also objected to the federal agency ordering the massive cleanup operation and then looking for someone to pick up the bill.
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