Dear HCN,
Though your recent issues
covering the mining industry in the West were informative and
interesting, I must call you to task for letting rabble-rouser Dave
Skinner share the platform with credible witnesses. (HCN, 1/19/98)
Why is it that “issues’ publications like High Country News, in
struggling so hard to be unbiased, repeatedly allow the “other”
side to commit sins “enviros’ could never get away with? I’ve yet
to read anything by Skinner wherein he doesn’t commit the
defamation for which he so vehemently criticizes the other camp. He
has a reputation around these parts for his emotional diatribes
against anything having to do with reining in the extractive
industries or slowing down “progress,” claiming that his “native
Westerner” status gives him special insights and a special love for
the land (since when is rape defined as
love?).
I’m just as “native’ – fifth generation
Western Coloradoan – and I find his lack of facts and his
emotionalism appalling. Many of us are willing to give mining a
second chance; it’s the third and fourth chances that get us
pissed. How many mistakes must we allow before we say enough? We’re
not talking about simple forgiveness here; we’re talking about the
future of watersheds and ecosystems and, ultimately, our own
health.
Let’s talk about one of these mistakes –
the all-too-familiar Summitville Mine. Skinner writes that Colorado
would never let another disaster like that happen again. After all,
the state is now in the throes of a Supreme Court lawsuit by the
landowners at Summitville that maintains the state failed to
adequately regulate the site and presents numerous examples of how
the Division of Minerals and Geology and the Water Quality Control
Division knew of the pad leaks and ongoing contamination, but
continued to negotiate and issue permits to Galactic. State
inspectors knew of the breaks in the pad liner when they happened
only two weeks into the project. What’s the state’s defense? That
it’s immune because of the Colorado Governmental Immunity
Act.
As for its “mistakes,” Summitville
Consolidated pleaded guilty to 40 counts of violating the Clean
Water Act and agreed to pay fines of $20 million, which will be
hard to collect, since the company declared bankruptcy. The company
and two of its managers (not including the CEO, Robert Friedland)
were also indicted for criminal violations that included lying to
federal regulators. Friedland is now a citizen of Hong Kong, his
base for new “global enterprises.” Friedland has a reputation for
raising venture capital, staying involved long enough for his
stocks to soar and then selling out. Other ventures have included
Minas Guariche, a strip-mine in Venezuela which has been accused of
using unsalaried natives in illegal mining operations and polluting
the headwaters of the Amazon. Friedland’s past includes the penny
stockmarket and an arrest for selling 8,000 tabs of LSD. Toxic Bob
is not the kind of guy I want to give a second
chance.
Skinner should ask the farmers in the San
Luis Valley below Summitville how they feel about second chances.
Only four years after Galactic re-opened Summitville, their metal
irrigation structures began to seriously corrode. Terrace
Reservoir, 17 miles downstream from the mine, and a popular fishing
area, no longer held any fish or aquatic life, nor did the entire
Alamosa River leading into and out of the reservoir. A number of
studies on the effects of Summitville contamination in the San Luis
Valley are in progress (remember, this is a relatively poor area
almost entirely dependent on agriculture). When asked about one
such study, which deals with toxic metals in sheep, a state health
official told me simply, “The study is still ongoing, and the sheep
aren’t dead yet.” The fish aren’t back yet,
either.
The state is now trying to downgrade the
water quality of the Alamosa River, thereby reducing the standards
required for remediation. The Superfund TAG group has hired
technical consultants who question the modeling the state is using
for the watershed. One of the ironies of the state’s wish to
downgrade the river quality is that previously such attempts at
reclassification were done by industries trying to avoid
responsibility for their pollution.
Has the state
of Colorado learned from the Summitville mistake? Is it now willing
to listen to the citizens who ultimately own the land it
manages?
Ask some of the people of the Alamosa
River watershed in towns such as Capulin and La Jara who are
preparing to do battle again. A few miles below Summitville is the
abandoned Miser Mine, across the river from the old town of Jasper,
which now hosts summer cabins. A California company called Earth
Resources has requested exploratory permits, and so far they
haven’t proven themselves to be good corporate neighbors. The
company has been charged by the Colorado Mined Land Reclamation
Board with prospecting without a permit. Company president Lynn
Shugarman has repeatedly broken through a locked gate put up by the
residents of Jasper to prevent access to the site, to which he
contends he has historical right-of-way. The residents say he’s
trespassing. Shugarman’s suing. One citizen told me that shotguns
might be the next stage. These are people who have historically
been pro-mining, Dave.
But the state is going to
issue the permits anyway. Apparently responsibility is not a factor
here. The regulators just pass the buck. Sources at the state level
told me they believe the company is obtaining the permit in order
to speculate on the mine, as if that makes it OK to permit it. But
ultimately, the Alamosa River watershed will have another cyanide
heap-leach mine. Yet another similar mine is also planned on Red
Mountain Pass, across the divide from
Summitville.
Thanks to the 1872 Mining Law,
mining companies can buy mineral rights for a mere pittance, make
millions of dollars, then walk away. The real truth here is that it
doesn’t cost a lot for mining industries to be responsible, but the
mining industry has a powerful lobby. How many Summitvilles do we
need before the law is changed?
How many second
chances should we give these people? How much doubletalk can Dave
Skinner dish out on behalf of People for the West? By the way, who
funds People for the West and the salaries of its
writers?
Chinle
Miller
Montrose,
Colorado
The writer is a
part-time
archaeologist.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Mining industry gets more than enough chances.
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