Mining Industry

A track hoe sidled up to the modest yellow brick church, paused for a moment to position itself, then drove its teeth into the roof with brutal efficiency. Shingles tumbled into the sanctuary. With the second blow, the wall buckled. The track hoe worked its way across the building, finally smashing the wall where a simple cross was emblazoned in red brick. Within 20 minutes, the First Baptist Church was rubble, ready to be loaded in waiting dump trucks and hauled away. Behind the church, a water tower that serves six households bears the legend "Picher Gorillas since 1918.

Nothing spoils a good hike through the wilderness like radioactive streams. That's one of the reasons all Americans, but particularly Arizonans who benefit from the tourism magnet that is the Grand Canyon, should be thankful to the Obama administration for its decision Monday to withdraw about 1 million acres in the vicinity of the national park from new mining claims for the next 20 years. Congressional Republicans, led by politicians such as Arizona Rep. Jeff Flake who are heavily backed by the mining industry, turned the Grand Canyon decision into an important plank of a broad anti-environmental campaign last year, throwing up numerous bills and amendments to prevent the Interior Department from withdrawing these lands from new claims.

Mining industry leaders cheered the Bush administration's repeal of Clinton-era regulations as a key step toward reversing declines in hard rock exploration and mine expansions in Nevada and the West. Conservationists said it reverses gains made in protecting the environment and guarding against mine pollution. They said they would file a lawsuit. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), said environmentalists have made unreasonable demands.

This far-flung capital of Nevada's Gold Belt is booming - very, very reluctantly. With the price of gold in the stratosphere, the mine-chiseled corner of northeastern Nevada is scrambling to fill thousands of jobs, while newcomers to the barren region beg for somewhere to sleep. The motels: sold out. The apartments: good luck. The RV parks: get in line. Nevada churns out more gold than all but four nations. The Elko area's 7.4% jobless rate is about half that of the once-thriving Las Vegas region.

It was an old alchemist's trick, dripping deadly cyanide onto a piece of rock to burn out its hidden stores of gold. Two decades ago, Pegasus Gold Inc. turned ancient art into modern riches, building a network of cyanide mines in the Little Rocky Mountains and transforming 38,000 tons a day of some of the lowest-grade ore in the world into Montana's biggest gold mine. After hauling 46 tons of gold out of the barren hills, Pegasus Gold Inc.

This far-flung capital of Nevada's Gold Belt is booming - very, very reluctantly. With the price of gold in the stratosphere, the mine-chiseled corner of northeastern Nevada is scrambling to fill thousands of jobs, while newcomers to the barren region beg for somewhere to sleep. The motels: sold out. The apartments: good luck. The RV parks: get in line. Nevada churns out more gold than all but four nations. The Elko area's 7.4% jobless rate is about half that of the once-thriving Las Vegas region.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration announced Monday that it intends to place a 20-year ban on mining 1 million acres of land bordering the Grand Canyon, an area where uranium mining claims have spiked 2,000% in the last seven years. The ban would strengthen a moratorium on new mining claims and activity, which the administration placed on Grand Canyon border lands two years ago in response to the jump in uranium stakes. Interior Department officials said the agency initially would extend the current moratorium another six months, until December, in order to complete the steps necessary to establish the 20-year ban. Mines currently in operation would not be affected.

A federal appeals court in Charleston has overturned a ruling prohibiting the government from issuing permits to dispose of waste from mountaintop mining operations into streams. The decision said U.S. District Judge Charles Haden's ruling last year restricting the Army Corps of Engineers was overly broad. The mining industry has increasingly relied on the practice of removing mountaintops to expose coal seams, then dumping the excess rock and dirt into nearby valleys, often covering streams.

Re "Sheep are losing ground," Sept. 2 Explaining the plan to cut critical protected habitat for endangered bighorn sheep in half, Jane Hedron, spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, says "critical habitat is habitat considered essential for the recovery of the endangered species. It is not intended to include the entire range of a species." Well, with that kind of logic, why not just reduce the size of the sheep's recovery area to a couple of acres in a zoo somewhere?

Regarding the new, drafted rule that would permit coal and hard-rock mining companies to continue piling leftover rock and dirt into nearby streams and valleys (April 26), Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie Whitman remarked, "It's not a giveaway to the mining industry. It doesn't allow activity that isn't already underway." Well! How many other practices should we allow because that's the way they're being done, regardless of damage? When something is wrong, saying it's the usual practice doesn't make it right.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration announced Monday that it intends to place a 20-year ban on mining 1 million acres of land bordering the Grand Canyon, an area where uranium mining claims have spiked 2,000% in the last seven years. The ban would strengthen a moratorium on new mining claims and activity, which the administration placed on Grand Canyon border lands two years ago in response to the jump in uranium stakes. Interior Department officials said the agency initially would extend the current moratorium another six months, until December, in order to complete the steps necessary to establish the 20-year ban. Mines currently in operation would not be affected.

Wang Wenlin and his family have eked out a living for decades farming and herding sheep and cattle on the vast, unforgiving Inner Mongolian steppes. But the opening three years ago of a nearby colliery and railway line to transport coal across his grazing land has squeezed Wang's livelihood. "My animals only have so much land to graze," said Wang, who earns about $9,000 a year. "In the winter, I'm cut off from the closest city. When it's windy, we get covered in coal dust because it's an open mine.

A track hoe sidled up to the modest yellow brick church, paused for a moment to position itself, then drove its teeth into the roof with brutal efficiency. Shingles tumbled into the sanctuary. With the second blow, the wall buckled. The track hoe worked its way across the building, finally smashing the wall where a simple cross was emblazoned in red brick. Within 20 minutes, the First Baptist Church was rubble, ready to be loaded in waiting dump trucks and hauled away. Behind the church, a water tower that serves six households bears the legend "Picher Gorillas since 1918.

China on Wednesday denied reports it would slash exports of rare-earth elements next year, saying it was still formulating a plan to protect its supply of the valuable material needed in advanced industrial products. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce was responding to an article published in the state-owned China Daily that reported Beijing would tighten its virtual monopoly on rare earths by cutting exports 30% in 2011. Despite the denial, the ministry defended China's right to restrict sales of rare earths overseas, a years-old policy that has unnerved foreign countries that rely on the material to make wind turbines, electric cars and state-of-the-art weaponry.

A third rescue attempt won't be made until at least Thursday evening at the Upper Big Branch mine, where a buildup of poisonous and explosive gases prevented crews from reaching four missing miners who may be housed in refuge chambers after a devastating explosion killed 25 coworkers Monday. Emergency crews have completed drilling a second borehole intended to double the rate of ventilation of the deadly air. Rescue workers won't be sent back into the mine until methane and carbon monoxide concentrations drop to safe levels, a process expected to take until at least 6 p.m. EDT, and possibly much later.

The controversial Kensington gold mine in southeast Alaska has won an important go-ahead from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which approved an amended permit that will allow the mine to dump millions of tons of waste into a nearby lake. The project has been the subject of a national environmental fight over whether navigable lakes and rivers can be used as repositories for toxic mine tailings. The Corps last week announced it was extending Coeur Alaska's permit until 2014 and reiterated that the company could construct a tailings storage facility in Lower Slate Lake, below the mine.

Wang Wenlin and his family have eked out a living for decades farming and herding sheep and cattle on the vast, unforgiving Inner Mongolian steppes. But the opening three years ago of a nearby colliery and railway line to transport coal across his grazing land has squeezed Wang's livelihood. "My animals only have so much land to graze," said Wang, who earns about $9,000 a year. "In the winter, I'm cut off from the closest city. When it's windy, we get covered in coal dust because it's an open mine.

The death of legislation to reform the 1872 mining law comes as an intolerable shock (Sept. 30). For 122 years, the American people have been royally ripped off by the mining industry. Each year, these giant corporations, many of them foreign, take billions of dollars in gold, silver, copper and other minerals that belong to Americans, and pay nothing to the U.S. Treasury. What do they leave behind on the nation's heritage of public lands? Poisoned drinking water wells, dead rivers, and moonscapes of gaping holes that could bury the Empire State Building.

Re "Sheep are losing ground," Sept. 2 Explaining the plan to cut critical protected habitat for endangered bighorn sheep in half, Jane Hedron, spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, says "critical habitat is habitat considered essential for the recovery of the endangered species. It is not intended to include the entire range of a species." Well, with that kind of logic, why not just reduce the size of the sheep's recovery area to a couple of acres in a zoo somewhere?