by Toddy Perryman, Corvallis
I want to thank Michael Howell for his excellent reporting on the proposed Sheep Creek Rare Earth Element mine, published by the Bitterroot Star recently. To further educate myself, I have done my own research and found out some further facts about the mine proposal.
The law governing hardrock mining on the vast majority of America’s public lands is more than 150 years old, a relic from a time when most modern mining equipment did not exist and the idea of managing public land for outdoor recreation or conservation values was many decades away. This archaic law has caused many problems—it prioritizes mining above all other uses, and has few safeguards for pollution, which has contaminated up to 40% of watersheds in the west. Current mining laws leave advocates and other citizens little recourse to object to ill-placed mines, and leave agencies with little discretion to balance mining with recreation access and other public land values. In the transition to renewable energy, it is important that the mining process is transparent, protects the safety and health of local communities, and allows land managers to protect special places on public lands.
On Tuesday, the Senate will hear two very different mining reform bills. The Mining Regulatory Clarity Act (S. 1281 & H.R. 2925) would allow for mining companies to dump toxic waste on public lands, even when they have found no valuable critical minerals to mine. In practice, it is a giveaway to mining companies, granting them authority to permanently occupy federal lands, and potentially locking out other uses from renewable energy to outdoor recreation.
It is clear to me that we need to prioritize protection of our natural environment so as to protect everything that is special about this place. Many people love the outdoor activities that we can access so close to home. Fishing and hunting and hiking and skiing are all popular and bring tourism dollars to our community. All of these activities will be impacted by this proposed mine.
Acid mine drainage occurs as an inevitable result of the mining process. It occurs EVERY TIME. It causes environmental devastation EVERY TIME. This is not hyperbole, no exaggeration. If this mine gets the approval to even just try to find the minerals they seek it will cause damage to our blue ribbon trout stream as the proposed site of the Sheep Creek mine is on the headwaters of the Bitterroot. The risks to our environment and economy are far too great to allow the inevitable damage to occur.
Another reason to oppose the proposed mine is the people who will be leading the mining operation. They have already had experience causing devastation in other areas. They don’t even live in our country (Canadian company). They want to come here to mine and take the money and run. They have done it before. Bonding has not been adequate to cover the massive cost of cleaning up after the damage has been done. It will fall to the taxpayers to clean up the mess and our blue ribbon trout stream will not exist any more. This is a classic case of private gain and public loss.
Even without all the other problems, the minerals of interest for this mine are Rare Earth Elements, which can be found in abundance in areas already damaged by other mining such as the Berkeley Pit in the Anaconda area. Why risk the devastation of yet another beautiful place when the important minerals can be obtained from already damaged areas? I learned this by going to a public talk by Philip Ramsey (PhD in microbiology) who has studied heavy metals contamination in rivers.
I encourage everyone to educate yourself. Please consider the damage to our beautiful valley if we let this irreversible damage occur. This proposal seems to be all pain and no gain. Please DON’T POLLUTE THE ‘ROOT.