WASHINGTON -- Members of Congress heard about the problems of abandoned mines in Montana and considered how best to begin charging royalties for mining on federal lands at a hearing Tuesday on potential changes to the 1872 hardrock mining law.

State Sen. Greg Lind, D-Missoula, came to Washington to testify before the House Natural Resources Committee about the 6,000 abandoned hardrock mines in the state and the hundreds of millions of dollars it is estimated it will cost to clean them up.

About 350 of those mines are a priority because of ongoing safety risks or pollution, Lind testified. Abandoned mines in Montana contaminate drinking water, harm fish and wildlife, degrade lands and cost taxpayers. He said modern mines continue to leak chemicals into groundwater in Montana.

Cyanide releases from the Zortman Landusky gold mine on Bureau of Land Management land in the Little Rocky Mountains in north-central Montana affected drinking water, Lind told the committee. The company filed bankruptcy in 1998, and the state has already appropriated $19 million for long-term water treatment at the site.

A similar situation occurred at the Beal Mountain gold mine in the Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest in western Montana, he noted. Pegasus Gold Corp. operated it until filing for bankruptcy in 1998. The Forest Service and state have already spent $5 million there, but an additional $13 million is needed for cleanup, Lind said.

Montana has spent more than $26 million for cleaning up historic abandoned mines, and estimates the unfunded cost of the 350 priority mines alone at nearly $92 million, he said.

Lind advocated that a royalty be charged for hardrock mining on public lands and used for reclamation of old mines. He backed stricter operational rules and reclamation criteria, as well as giving regulators the ability to bar mining where it is inappropriate.

Lind also requested more money for the Superfund trust fund, as some Montana mines have been designated Superfund sites.

Laura Skaer, executive director of the Northwest Mining Association, said 80 to 90 percent of all abandoned mines have landscape disturbance or safety problems, not pollution.

"The vast majority of sites do not pose environmental problems," she said.

Skaer cited a Forest Service/ BLM report estimating the number of abandoned mines on federal land managed by those agencies at 47,000.

She said environmental and permitting regulations put in place in recent decades have largely taken care of the problem for new mines, with a "very comprehensive set of regulations that ensure water quality is protected." She also said Superfund is not the way to fund cleanup efforts.

She advocated that royalties collected from mining companies be used for a federal abandoned mine land fund, with the money sent directly to the states to use. She also pushed for a so-called "Good Samaritan" law that would allow groups to voluntarily clean up the sites without being liable for them.

Jim Hanlon, director of the Office of Wastewater Management at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, cited estimates of more than half a million abandoned mines nationwide, and said most are former hardrock mines in the West. Hanlon also advocated for a Good Samaritan law.

Tony Ferguson, director of Minerals and Geology Management at the U.S. Forest Service, said his agency and the BLM are celebrating 10 years of successes in cleaning up abandoned hardrock mines. He said the BLM is developing a national inventory showing all abandoned mines on federal lands and called for better planning and prioritization of reclamation activities.

The committee also considered how best to charge royalties for hardrock mining on public lands. All other extractive industries except for mining pay such royalties.

A bill by Committee Chairman Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., would charge an 8 percent royalty on gross mining revenue from federal lands.

Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, blasted the provision as punishing industry. "If we go forth with this bill as it is written, you will not have a hardrock industry," Young said.

Expert witnesses debated whether the royalty should be based on the amount produced or on the net income or profit produced, whether deductions should be allowed for smelting and refining, and whether the royalty should vary for various categories of minerals.