Posts tagged: cyanide leach mining

Good News From Montana: HB 306 is Dead

April 14, 2011, by 4 comments

Governor Vetoes Cyanide Leach Mining Bill

In what you’d have to describe as a strong political statement, Montana’s Governor Schweitzer applied a hot branding iron “veto” to some of the Montana State Legislature’s nuttier legislation, including SB 306 — the cyanide leach mining bill which had been largely rejected by voters twice before.

It’s gratifying to see him apply the veto he promised, but then you realize he had to apply the veto, and you wonder how things got that far out of hand.

Wayne at the WillFishForWork blog offers a Montanan’s perspective on the whole sordid affair, and I suspect — given the volume of nutjob legislation coming out of the state — we’ll be hearing more from Big Sky Country soon.

See you at the capital, Tom Chandler.

Montana Legislature Passes New Cyanide Leach Mining Law (Against the Wishes of the Public): You Gotta Send an Email To Stop It…

April 4, 2011, by 1 comment

The Horror that is the Montana Legislature has apparently voted the new cyanide leach mining bill (SB 306) through to the governor — despite the fact the state’s voters had twice specifically voted to do away with new cyanide leach mining operations (which are notorious for springing leaks and leaving messes for the taxpayers to clean up).

Wayne at Willfishforwork.com lays out all the murky details and ugly bedfellows, and if you don’t want to stare into that dark too long, simply do this:

Write Montana’s governor and tell him you’re tired of the taxpayers being put on the hook for operations which diminish the state’s recreational value to anglers and cause job losses when anglers stay home.

email: governor@mt.gov

Now, more from Willfishforwork:

What they don’t tell you is that the Golden Sunlight operation has already puked 19 million gallons (yeah, whoa! I didn’t even remember it being that big and that’s just what the legislature was probably hoping) on the surrounding landscape already (yes, that would be the Jefferson river very nearby). That whole fiasco was promptly cleaned up by the last republican led legislature, and I believe the governor at the time was republican Marc Racicot. Not that I’m implicating anyone, just sayin’.

But that’s all in the past right? WRONG!

….

And of course there is the issue of all the mines that might utilize this new cyanide leach for hire operation. Of course these will need to be new permitted operations. Currently there is only one possible customer for such an operation and that would be Dutch Gold Resources that is currently confirming test holes on a claim at the upper end of Rock Creek.[ed: emphasis mine] Life is full of coincidences isn’t it. But that doesn’t mean it would be limited to just that claim of course, it’s highly probable that in the current gold market that there might be many more claims that could be permitted if there is the potential to turn a profit. Basically, the potential gold bearing areas of Montana could end up looking like a maze with little blocks of Swiss cheese at their centers.

Wayne comes to what is not a surprising conclusion:

Now if I didn’t know better, I’d say that Montana SB 306 looks like a full blown mining bill that leaves the taxpayers in the same place with mining operations that they have always been- picking up the tab. Jobs? There are no jobs here, just a huge liability for more mining cleanups, legal litigation, infrastructure liabilities and a tortured landscape that taxpayers will have to live in and pay for while the mining companies take the profit elsewhere.

Those directions again?

Write Montana’s governor and tell him you’re tired of the taxpayers being put on the hook for operations which diminish the state’s recreational value to anglers and cause job losses when anglers stay home.

email: governor@mt.gov

See you online, Tom Chandler

Montana Rivers Under Another Assault; This Time It’s Your Friendly Neighborhood Mining Company

March 26, 2011, by 3 comments

Ahh, Montana. Your verdant forests. Your streams and rivers teeming with trout.

Your legislature teeming with fools and industry shills.

Meet SB 306 – the Cyanide Leach mining bill.

Montana’s voters have on several occasions voted overwhelmingly to support a ban on cyanide heap leach mining, but apparently, a few greedy mining companies know better, and have (again) resurrected legislation which would ease that ban.

The Button Valley Bugle site offers up some eye-opening background:

In 1998, Montana voters decided to ban one of the most egregious pollution hazards, cyanide heap leach ore extraction. Under this method, cyanide is sprayed over tons of crushed ore and allowed to soak for months to extract gold and other metals from the rock. Sometimes the cyanide escapes the containment. In 2004, the mining industry funded the passage of an initiative to repeal the voter-approved ban. That measure failed so, the industry sued. The suit failed in the Montana Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court elected to not hear the appeal.

That brings us to round three (or four or five…). Huge mining corporations are again pushing another end run around the wishes of Montana voters with SB-306 in the Legislature. The new measure would allow mines to continue to use cyanide heap leach methods at existing mines around the state, but mainly at the Golden Sunlight mine near Whitehall (which just happens to be in the district of bill sponsor Senator Terry Murphy, R-Cardwell).

Mine owners claim that they are losing revenue due to the cyanide ban even though mining employment is up since the ban. They claim that they know better how to control the cyanide now and won’t allow massive pollution mistakes like Zortman-Landusky where a spill of 5 million gallons of cyanide-laced water following the bankruptcy of Pegasus Gold, has polluted water supplies on the Fort Belknap Reservation. Government regulators reported that water leaking from the mine will have to be treated for “thousands of years”.

In a study of how well hardrock mining companies are able to predict the amount of pollution that their mines will produce prior to beginning operations, Earthworks found that,

  • 100 percent of mines predicted compliance with water quality standards before operations began (assuming pre-operations water quality was in compliance)
  • 76 percent of mines studied in detail exceeded water quality standards due to mining activity
  • Mitigation measures predicted to prevent water quality exceedances failed at 64 percent of the mines studied in detail

The Bugle’s story goes on to profile one of the major players behind the mining bill: Newmont Mining.

This “environmentally friendly” mining company paid a substantial fine in 2009 for a sizable cyanide spill in Ghana, and goes on to detail the threats to places like the Upper Rock Creek drainage and the Blackfoot, which is already the victim of several disastrous mining projects.

This bill passed the senate last month (SB 306), and despite better than 3-1 opposition to this stinker in the House Natural Resources committee, it could easily pass.

Montana already enjoys the benefits of nearly 6000 abandoned mines (most of them the owners simply walked away from); why not create a few more?

SB 306 represents yet another attempt by Montana’s current nutjob legislature to undo what Montana’s voters have already happily done, and it’s worth at least a call or two.

“Welcome to Montana: The Nutjob Legislator State”

February 21, 2011, by 13 comments

Montana has occupied the attention of a sizable chunk of the online fly fishing community as of late – the by-product of an anti-stream-access bill, and news of a potential gold mine on Montana’s famed Rock Creek.

The worst news?

That’s not the worst news.

First, let’s dispense with the stupidity we already know about.

WillFishForWork was among the first to publish news of the Rock Creek gold mine issue (read more here at the Missoulian newspaper), and several Montana blogs have also done good work following the stream access issue, even engaging in actual reportage (especially the resurrected Chi Wulff).

They’ve done a good job mobilizing fly fishing’s blogosphere, and while kudos are in order, further vigilance is required.

Because we’re not done yet.

The Overlooked Bad News: Cyanide Leach Mining Rises From Dead

One Montana Senate bill (SB 306) is attempting to do what Montana’s voters have already said shouldn’t be done: revive highly toxic cyanide leach mining in the state.

Montana’s voters overwhelmingly said “no” to cyanide leach mining in a pair of referendums, and yet – like the zombies who never die, but rise from the grave to eat the brains of the living – a bill comes along to create loophole you could drive an Abrams tank through.

The bill would encourage the creation of more open-pit mines in the state, and allow the ore to be shipped to one of a handful of mines for “processing.”

In other words, it’s more bad news for Montana’s streams and rivers, which – based on the figures I’ve seen recently – mean far more to the economy than extractive industries.

I’ll try to stay current on this one, though anyone with more connections in Montana might want to prod the thing with a pointed stick to see what’s happening.

That said, we’ve gotta ask: What’s with this tidal wave of bad news from Montana? Sadly, the answer is…

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

All of the above is the result of the recent elections, which were decided supposedly on the campaign promises of more jobs for the state.

As near as anyone can tell, the legislation introduced is having the opposite effect, and a lot of it is frankly of the Black Helicopter variety.

Sure, every state has its share of nutjobs, but the western states seem uniquely equipped to vote them into the office, leading to a tidal wave of moronic (and non-job-related) legislation like these currently infesting the Montana legislature (from the Montana Cowgirl blog):

This is not a joke. These are real bills, and they are currently taking priority in the Montana legislature. Enjoy.

Welcome to the land of nutters, the Montana Legislature.

  • Legalize hunting with hand-thrown spear (Senate Bill 112)
  • Create fully-armed militia in every town (House Bill 278)
  • Create an 11 person panel with authority to nullify all federal laws (House Bill 382)
  • Eliminate educational requirements for persons seeking job of State Superintendent of Schools (HB 154)
  • Withdraw the United States of America from the United Nations (Senate Joint Resolution 2)
  • Omit Barak Obama’s name from the 2012 ballot because his father was born outside of America (House Bill 205)
  • Give sheriffs authority over the federal government in terror investigations (Senate Bill 114)
  • Require the federal government to prove in court that the National Parks were lawfully acquired. (House Bill 506)
  • UPDATE: 18. Declare that global warming is good. (House Bill 549)

I’d love to shake my head sadly and – striking a faintly superior note – suggest it’s too bad Montana has fallen into the grip of those who believe they were once abducted by aliens, but we’re facing pretty much the same level of inane behavior right here in Siskiyou County, whose Board of Supervisors would vote to secede from the union if we wouldn’t lose the bags of federal money that flow into our county each year.

In Montana’s case, I’m tempted to suggest that its heavily pestered trout have attained a higher level of intelligence than many of its legislators, who seem far less choosy about what they’ll bite off.

See you at the loony bin, Tom Chandler.