On Nov.2, Montanans will vote
on Initiative 147, which would repeal the state’s ban on
cyanide heap-leach gold and silver mining. The ban was passed by
voters for a good reason: Montana, and Indian Country in
particular, will suffer for many decades from the pollution caused
by mining operations.
Zortman-Landusky Gold Mines, for
instance, has declared bankruptcy, leaving behind poisoned streams
for Montana tribes and an enormous clean-up bill for Montana
taxpayers. The mines were operated by Pegasus Gold Corp. in the
Little Rocky Mountains, at the southeast end of the Assiniboine and
Gros Ventre Fort Belknap Reservation.
Pegasus’
Zortman-Landusky Gold Mines were sued under the Clean Water Act and
faced a $36 million cleanup settlement in 1996. The company avoided
its responsibilities by declaring bankruptcy in 1998.
But
Zortman-Landusky made more than $250 billion before declaring
bankruptcy. Now, the cost of cyanide leach mining cleanup is
projected to many millions of dollars and required into perpetuity.
Montana is currently liable for up to $60 million in
reclamation and water treatment costs at the Zortman-Landusky, Beal
Mountain and Kendall mines. This year alone, the state is spending
$500,000 in taxpayer funds just to develop plans for these
cleanups.
The state and the Environmental Protection
Agency had filed suit against Pegasus Gold Corp., charging that its
mines’ waste discharges present human health risks and that
“the acidity of the discharges is killing fish and aquatic life.”
Water pollution continues to be so severe that the state has
determined water treatment will be required forever.
Catherine Halver, 74, tribal member of the Gros-Ventre in
Lodgepole, helped fight cyanide leach mining. Halver, who is
vice-chairman of the Native grassroots group, Island Mountain
Protectors, said Spirit Mountain was ruined before the mining
operations of Zortman-Landusky Gold Mines could be halted.
“A lot of our ancestors in the past used this mountain
for vision quests and prayers,” she said. “That was a very sacred
mountain to our people. Now, you go up there and it is just a
little pile of rubble. It really affects the old people; a lot of
our burial sites were destroyed. There were people buried all over
that mountain. They were just digging up the dead.”
Halver lives 15 miles from the mine sites; their cyanide-laden
waters flow down Little Warm Creek and through her property. Years
ago, she fought to get the water tested, and cyanide was found in
the water.
“We have got contaminated water running into
our reservation every day,” Halver said. The poisoned water affects
everything, she said, including the sage, chokecherries and other
medicine plants, as well as the traditional foods people use every
day.
Halver said that though the list of damage goes on
and on, a cleanup will never be completed in her lifetime. The
mining companies always say they are going to reclaim the land and
water, she said, but then, they decide new processes are too
expensive or they go out of business.
In 1982, a section
of piping used in the mine’s cyanide sprinkling system
ruptured and released 52,000 gallons of cyanide solution. At least
eight other cyanide spills occurred in the years afterward .
Julie King, Assiniboine of Fort Belknap, remembers
playing in those same mountains as a child. She said the waters no
longer flow the way they did where the family fished.
“They always leave us a mess to clean up,” she said. “They come in
for a short time, and then they are gone. But the people here are
going to be here for many years, and we have to live with this.”
The initiative on the ballot, I-147, overturning
Montana’s ban on cyanide leach gold mining, is backed by the mining
industry, which raised close to $2 million to press for passage. Of
that, all but a few percent came from cash and in-kind
contributions from Canyon Resources Corp. of Golden, Colo., which
has joined forces with a Montana mining group.
Montana is
the last of the Western frontier. I know that I am not alone in
believing that our water — among the purest in the world
— was never meant to turn into a liquid resembling battery
acid.
Jonathan Windy Boy is a contributor to
Writers on the Range, a service of High Country
News (hcn.org). He is a Chippewa Cree councilman in Rocky
Boy, Montana, and also a representative to the state
Legislature.
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