Gold Fever Tarnishes Fragile Peace -- Old-Timers, `Hippies' Clash Over Proposal For Okanogan Mine

CHESAW, Okanogan County - Old-timers in this remote corner of the state have waited a lifetime for a new gold rush in the rugged hills of the Okanogan.

Now it has happened. A major gold deposit has been discovered on Buckhorn Mountain. But the find has wrenched apart a tiny community of philosophical opposites - back-to-earth hippies and organic farmers on one side, ranchers and loggers on the other.

The two groups are locked in a battle for the future of the land.

On both sides, people seem stunned that a 20-year effort to achieve harmony between hippie immigrants and older farmers had been shattered so quickly. Neighbors no longer talk. Fear and suspicion are rampant. The social cooperation that holds together a small farming community like this has fallen apart.

At the heart of this cultural clash is a proposal to blast a large open-pit gold mine into the side of Buckhorn Mountain, flanked by a 115-acre, plastic-lined waste pond to be laced with cyanide.

For the members of the loose-knit hippie community, the proposed mine is an anathema to the values they've stood by through decades of change.

But to the area's older ranchers and loggers the project represents hope for a county of 33,350 where about 16 percent of the work force is unemployed.

For many of the older residents, environmentalism has a bad name. They've watched their children leave the Okanogan in search of better opportunities and they've seen the region's traditional industries - apples, logging and tourism - fall victim to Alar, the spotted owl and environmentalists who, in their view, have killed the promising Early Winters Ski resort proposed for nearby Mazama.

Located in North Central Washington, Okanogan County is a rocky, silent expanse of dry forests and grassy valleys. Chesaw, the town at the base of 5,600-foot Buckhorn Mountain, is almost a ghost town. Once the home of hundreds, it now boasts a population of 23 clustered in mobile homes around a general store.

But now the announcement in February that there's gold here has helped fuel a prospecting frenzy: 22 areas of the county are being examined for gold deposits; at least two other companies have announced plans to start exploratory drilling, according to U.S. Forest Service officials.

Gold digging in the Okanogan highlands is nothing new.

It was gold that first brought settlers here at the turn of the century. Abandoned log shacks from that era still dot the roadside on the winding route connecting Chesaw to Tonasket. Even today, locals say, a few determined gold hunters dwell in the hills, picking away at old claims and dreaming of striking it rich.

But the new gold rush is nothing like the last. Not pans and shovels, but explosives and cyanide are the tools of modern-day prospectors.

A joint venture of Battle Mountain Gold Co. of Texas and Crown Resources of Denver plans to blast a 350-foot hole into Buckhorn's side, grind the rock into powder and leach it with cyanide, all to extract a quantity of gold that - after eight to 10 years of mining - would fit into the back of a pickup truck and sell for hundreds of millions of dollars.

Battle Mountain Gold Co. has just begun the long procedure of getting approval for the project - from 25 local, state and federal agencies. An environmental-impact study is under way. The complex process is not likely to result in mining at Buckhorn before 1994.

The operation would consist of a 90-acre crater in the side of the mountain. Within about a decade, Battle Mountain and Crown Resources would finish mining, cover up a huge plastic-lined waste pond and replant the pit - but leave the crater.

The project has obsessed this community for months. At every gathering place, from the natural food co-op to a dusty driveway where farmers share a beer after work, conversations turn on the technicalities of tailings-pond linings and rock slurries.

"This is all we talk about when we get together," said mine opponent Judy Howlett, who raises flowers and rabbits on a farm near Chesaw.

At a farm auction on the hill overlooking Chesaw the past Saturday, back-to-earthers and ranchers mingled uneasily among the 1950s farm equipment scattered across the grass.

"It's the new-lifestyle people who are causing the trouble," said Warren Brazle, a 70-year-old Chesaw rancher in favor of the mine. "We tolerated them, but now I wouldn't give one of them the time of day. If they'd of ran out of gas on the highway and it were 30 below, well, I guess we'd help 'em. But otherwise, no."

The Okanogan highlands became home to a community of Haight-Ashbury veterans, hippies and organic farmers during the back-to-the-land movement of the late '60s and early '70s. Over the years their numbers have dropped, but many still live here in tepees or cabins, and about 16 live on a communal farm called Triple Creek, which lies in the shadow of Buckhorn Mountain.

Triple Creek members fear the mine would disrupt their peaceful setting with blasting and truck traffic, and pollute their water. It's also an offense to their philosophy of "living light," existing with as little impact on the land as possible.

The irony of it is not lost on them: After two decades of clinging to their values despite hardship, defections and ridicule, these latter-day hippies are suddenly faced with living three miles from what to them seems the most extreme form of industrial exploitation of the land.

"It's like the Garden of Eden had to have its poison apple," said Jonika Mountainfire, a 50-year-old commune member.

But their concerns are practical, too. Triple Creek members say they are eight years from paying off the commune's $350,000 loan on the farm. If the mine is built and a planned mining truck route goes in on the edge of their property, they fear the land's value - and its livability - might be hurt irreparably. And some say they're getting too old to start over.

"When we came, we were young and idealistic," said commune member Charlene Rich. "We had these dreams. Now, I'm running out of energy. It's different when you're 20 or 30. . . . We're scared."

In stark contrast to these self-described hippies are the area's old-timers, many of whom are second- and third-generation ranchers and loggers whose ancestors homesteaded the land during its first gold rush in the 1890s.

Chesaw resident Bob Hirst, a retired restaurant owner, says he expects the mine to help the region's depressed economy, hit hard by bad times for timber and farming.

"The best times are gone. But they could come back," he said.

Hirst is the son of a miner who migrated to the Okanogan during the gold-rush days. He has held onto his father's mining claims for 60 years, waiting for them to bear fruit. Now, he said, he has finally been able to lease them to exploration firms.

The conflict is especially painful for those caught in between.

Some ranchers say they fear the mine could infringe on their water rights. But after years of feeling their livelihood threatened by the environmental movement, they're reluctant to join forces with the back-to-earthers.

"I'm a farmer. Maybe I'm an environmentalist, I don't know. But I'm concerned," said Gary Nealey, who grows hay, grain and cattle on his farm near Chesaw. "I've got a lot of alternative-lifestyle friends. I've got a lot of old-timer friends. I wish we could get together and work this out."

Many in the region blame the mining companies for polarizing the community, a contention mine officials deny.

"This stirred up a pot already there simmering," said Craig Stiles, a geologist for Battle Mountain Gold. "I don't regret finding this. If it gives 130 families jobs for eight or 10 years, I don't feel bad about it. But it's sure been an uncomfortable situation here."

But despite the hostility, there is still common ground between the extremes in the highlands. Concerns for clean water and the rural character of the region are echoed by ranchers and hippies alike. As one rancher put it, without water the land is worth nothing to anyone.

And on both sides, individuals express sorrow over the new split in their community.

"This is a Greek tragedy," said Roger Lorenz, a 76-year-old commune member and pacifist. "In Greek tragedies, opposing forces that go way back are going to clash . . . and you can't stop it. But here, I don't think it has to be that way."