Follow the link to read the full electronic version of Montana Trout Unlimited’s quarterly newsletter.
Modern mining: The charity bait-and-switch
In addition to the common mining-company maneuver of declaring bankruptcy before having to fork out money for reclamation, another set of common ploys appears to be tax dodging and bribing local communities. The story of Cameco Corp., a uranium-mining company in Saskatchewan, is a good illustration of those.
Must Montanans shoulder another mine clean-up?
Another mining company in Montana goes broke before reclamation is finished, leaving the environment at risk. How many times does this have to happen before companies are required to be accountable before they start?
Study: Most mines contaminate neaby waters
Want evidence as to how often environmental agency and mining industry predictions are wrong when it comes to water contamination?
This report – Comparisons Report Final – analyzes the water quality that environmental studies predict prior to the approval of several different mines and the resulting water quality after the mines were in operation. They find that the predictions are rarely correct, having painted a rosier picture than what exists.
Although all mines require carefully executed mitigation, mines close to water resources with high acid drainage or contaminant leaching potential, such as the Black Butte mine, need special attention. That’s because the authors find that adverse impacts to water quality are common at mine sites, and they are most often caused by failed mitigation.
Maps show threats to Sheep Creek
Tintina Resources has released a document explaining in detail the facility that they proposed in their permit application for storage of the acid-producing tailings from the Black Butte mine.
Australian mining CEO visits Smith River mine
On Friday, Karl Simich, CEO of Australia-based Sandfire Resources, visited the site of one of his new proposed mines: the Black Butte copper mine near White Sulphur Springs and the Smith River.