Letter to the Editor
April 26, 2012 at 6:29 am in Lake County News-Chronicle
Produce metals here, or in third-world country?
First of all, the new proposed mining ventures are not mining “sulfide” any more than the mining industry that started in MInnesota in 1884 is an “oxide” mining activity. Yes, iron oxides have been mined for over a century in Minnesota. The proposed ventures are in fact planning to mine copper sulfide and nickel sulfides.
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The type of mining being pursued is called sulfide mining because to call it “copper-nickel-gold-palladium-platinum-and-other-trace-minerals” mining is tedious. If people know what the topic is, then the name it is given is irrelevant, as long as it is understood.
Yes, the companies concerened need to have a clean operation in order to stay in business, but if it can have a dirty operation and get away with it, that will be the easier and cheaper option, fattening the corporate bottom line. Externalizing costs has always been the very first avenue of corporate approach to any enterprise. What is the track record for copper-nickel-gold-palladium-platinum-and-other-trace-minerals mining on this continent? Terrible and horriffic! What reason do we have to believe this time will be any different? Is it when the company says, “Trust me!”?
I agree that we are all guilty partners in the dirty extraction of needed minerals. What must be done is to gather up the political and economic will to insure that the true price of these minerals is paid on delivery, with no externalized costs to be paid by us and future generations in the coin of lost water and air quality. I for one have absooutely no faith that the mining companies will deliver on promises of doing things right. They must be legally held responsible for every drop of acid that reaches the water shed from the tiime the first shovelful is turned, until the last vestige of pollution is secured and mitigated. This will cost money, but it will be cheaper than trying to create a new watershed with drinkable water and breathable air with soiled and polluted material to work with. It is easier (and actually cheaper) to keep it clean than to clean it up.
tom koehler
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