This week the editor of one of our local newspapers, the Weekly Bulletin, wrote an editorial titled Open Minds to the Mines. In it he describes how his dad would rise before dawn to catch the bus that would take him to work at the Trench Mine in Harshaw during the 60’s. He states that although superfund atrocities spring to mind when we think about mines, we shouldn’t let that predjudice us from considering new mines in the Patagonias because mining companies now “work to comply with some of the strictest regulations designed to protect the environment.”
“Yes, a portion of the land may be forever scarred, but out of that dirt can come hundreds of decent jobs and an improved quality of life.”
He ends his editorial with…”I say yes to mines.”
This has caused quite the flurry of emails to our inbox! It seems that Mr. Coppola is trusting the mining companies and the government agencies that oversee them to make sure that the very things that give us life, like water, are protected. But in a recent and thorough study titled Predicting Water Quality at Hardrock Mines, mine operator promises versus what actually happened after operations began were compared. The results showed that even with the National Environmental Policy requirements and oversight, the Environmental Impact Statements underestimated the impact on water in 76% of the cases studied.
Read Mr. Coppola’s editorial.
We have written two lettors to the editor in response to Mr. Coppola’s editorial. You can read them here.
We encourage you to also write and let him know how you feel about the prospect of four open pit mines in the Patagonia Mountains, and his idea that they would lead to an “improved quality of life”.
