NM Mining Co. Loses Dispute Over Stonewash Pumice

The 10th Circuit rejected a mining company's challenge of the noncompliance notice it received from the U.S. Forest Service for mining too many rare, large pumice pieces and selling them to industries other than the garment industry, which uses the pumice to stonewash jeans. Copar had leased 23 mining claims in New Mexico's Santa Fe National Forest from the Cook family in the 1980s. In 1993, Congress passed a law to create the Jemez National Recreation Area, barring mining on 57,000 acres, including the land mined by Cobar. The Cooks filed, and partially won, a takings claim against the government. The Forest Service conceded that four of the 23 mining claims contained "valuable and marketable" three-quarter-inch pumice, which could be used to stonewash jeans. The remaining claims were deemed null and void, because they contained no valuable mineral deposit. The Forest Service paid $4 million to settle the takings claims, and the Cooks and Copar relinquished the remaining 19 claims, which contained only run-of-the-mill pumice that can't be used for stonewashing. The three-quarter-inch pumice is restricted almost exclusively to the garment industry, which uses it to abrade denim fabric to create a worn or "stonewashed" look...more