THE BILLINGS GAZETTE - October 28, 2004
Gazette opinion: Look at facts; don't buy I-147's political pitch

Initiative 147 proposes that Montanans reverse their 1998 decision to outlaw new cyanide heap-leach mines. Initiative 147 is being promoted chiefly by Canyon Resources, a Colorado company that already is at impasse with the state of Montana over cleanup of its cyanide leach gold mine that ceased operations nine years ago. Canyon Resources refused to pay for the study to determine how best to accomplish that cleanup, so the state had to use taxpayer money for the necessary study.

That record doesn't inspire confidence for doing more of the same business with the same firm and the same cyanide heap-leach process.

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HELENA INDEPENDENT RECORD - October 27, 2004
Cyanide, no. Tobacco tax, yes

Tuesday's election ballot will be awash in initiatives. Here's our take on the more important ones:

I-147

No. Montanans passed an initiative in 1998 that banned new cyanide-leach open-pit mines, and nothing has changed since then, including the grim track record of leaks and other problems with the cyanide-leach process. Montanans already have voted to allow only responsible mining in their state, and they should stick to their guns.

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THE BILLINGS GAZETTE - October 25, 2004
Backing I-147: Canyon Resources seeks to end cyanide leach mining ban
By JENNIFER McKEE
Gazette State Bureau

HELENA - Canyon Resources Corp. wants to dig an open pit gold mine as deep as the Seattle Space Needle is tall - roughly 600 feet - about a half mile from the banks of the Blackfoot River.

The company has lost money in nine of the past 10 years, including a $12.5 million loss last year alone, records show.

Those two things just don't go together, said Gary Buchanan, a Billings businessman, former state Commerce director and one of the principal opponents of Initiative 147, a Canyon-funded effort to repeal the state's 1998 ban on open pit cyanide leach mining. Buchanan, owner of Buchanan Capital, does not own and has not bought or sold any Canyon stock for either himself and his clients.

"You can't afford to do mining right when you're financially weak," he said. "Canyon Resources has no business doing business in Montana."

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THE BILLINGS GAZETTE - October 22, 2004
I-147 safeguards not new, foes say
Mining engineer's report demonstrates that I-147 is smoke and mirrors
By JENNIFER McKEE
Gazette State Bureau

HELENA - Opponents of an effort to repeal the state's ban on open pit cyanide leach mining released a study Thursday concluding that the proposed initiative doesn't really require any new environmental safeguards.

"I-147 is a hoax," said Bruce Farling, executive director of Montana Trout Unlimited, one of the main donors to a committee formed to oppose the initiative.

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Despite what you may have heard from people in both political parties, this doesn't strike me as a particularly nasty campaign season in Montana.

The mud that's been flung has been pretty thin, compared with what we've seen in the national races and in our own history, and I can't help believing that we'll be in good hands no matter who wins the major state races on Nov. 2.

But there is some ugliness abroad this year, and it's concentrated around the "citizen" initiative to allow cyanide heap-leach mining to resume in Montana. People in this state who were fed up with corporate welfare and long-term pollution, fed up with the idea of leveling whole mountains to extract tiny amounts of gold and silver, voted six years ago to ban this wasteful, destructive form of mining.

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BOZEMAN DAILY CHRONICLE - October 14, 2004
Cyanide mining's record too bad to ignore
By Chronicle Editor OPINION

Mining has been a big part of Montana's history - and it will continue to be. Talc is mined profitably right here in Gallatin County. The Stillwater Mine, a very successful platinum and palladium producing operation near Nye, provides many high-paying, stable jobs for Montanans.

But Montanans approved a ballot initiative in 1998 that prohibited a certain type of mining in Montana - cyanide heap-leach mining.

On Nov. 2, voters will be asked to repeal that initiative and allow cyanide heap-leach mining to resume.

But to do so would be a mistake.

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THE BILLINGS GAZETTE - September 29, 2004
Mining firm chief declines debate
By JENNIFER McKEE of the Gazette State Bureau

HELENA - The president of the mining company that has contributed about 97 percent of the war chest for an initiative to reverse the state's 1998 ban on cyanide leach mining has declined an invitation to debate the issue in Montana.

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THE BILLINGS GAZETTE - September 27, 2004
Poll shows cyanide ban still favored
By JENNIFER McKEE of the Billings Gazette State Bureau

HELENA - Montana voters remain slightly more supportive of maintaining a 1998 ban on cyanide leach gold and silver mining than in repealing it, a new Gazette State Poll shows.

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THE DAILY INTER LAKE - September 22, 2004
I-147: Enough is enough
OPINION

In 1998, the voters of Montana went to the polls and approved a ballot measure that banned new and expanded open-pit cyanide -leach mining in Montana.

This year, Montanans are again being asked to vote on cyanide -leach mining. Initiative 147 would re-establish the technique in Montana, with a variety of environmental safeguards spelled out explicitly.

Proponents of I-147 are selling the initiative as a jobs measure, claiming that high-paying mining jobs are important to Montana's economy.

But Montanans already made a decision in 1998 that jobs are less important than a clean environment. If we are going to have the benefits of these jobs, they must come about as a result of industries that are respectful of the natural resources of our state, and not just exploitive of them. This view grows out of the state's long tradition of being taken advantage of by out-of-state corporations that have made millions of dollars by extracting mineral wealth from the state and leaving behind environmental catastrophes.

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MONTANA ASSOCIATION OF CHURCHES comes out against I-147 - September 20, 2004
I-147 challenges stewardship principle
By Betty Whiting for Montana Association of Churches

The Montana Association of Churches "Caring in Creation" position statement leads us to oppose I-147. The measure, which will appear on the November ballot, allows open-pit mining for gold or silver using heap leachings or vat leaching with cyanide ore-processing reagents.

"The Montana Association of Churches affirms and supports:   . . . protection of land, air and water through laws and policies that phase in prohibitions against the discharge of harmful emissions and effluents; restoration of air, land, and water quality whenever disrupted by harmful environmental practices . . . We call upon all citizens, corporations, and our governmental representatives to seek ways to safeguard the quality of the air, land and water which we and our descendants need to live healthy lives and to have productive employment."   (MAC Caring in Creation Position Statement, adopted 10/27/1998.)

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INDIAN COUNTRY TODAY - September 14, 2004
Montana tribes oppose return to cyanide mining
By Brenda Norrell / Southwest Staff Reporter / Indian Country Today

FORT BELKNAP, Mont. - While the Bush administration pressed for a record number of oil and gas leases in the West, American Indians in Montana opposed new legislation that would permit mining companies to return to cyanide leach gold mining.

Montana Rep. Jonathan Windy Boy, D-Box Elder, said American Indians have a sacred responsibility to protect nature and points out the water and soil has already been poisoned by cyanide leach mining in Montana.

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THE WASHINGTON POST - September 9 , 2004
Gold in Montana Hills May Not Be In the Ground
Famed River Threatened by Mining
By BLAINE HARDEN, Washington Post Staff Writer

LINCOLN, Mont. -- The waters of the Blackfoot River mesmerized and haunted Norman Maclean, who fished in the river all his life and celebrated its mysteries in "A River Runs Through It."

Montana voters approved an initiative six years ago that was to have forever protected the Blackfoot from a proposed cyanide open-pit gold mine near the river's headwaters.

But because of another initiative, which was proposed and is being bankrolled by a Colorado mining company, Montanans will be asked on Nov. 2 to remove those protections. If it passes, Initiative 147 would remove the 1998 ban on cyanide heap-leach gold mining, a process that the Montana Department of Environmental Quality says has sullied the state with water pollution problems that will continue in perpetuity.

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MISSOULIAN - July 29, 2004
Mine if you will, but not near the Blackfoot River
By GREG TOLLEFSON for the Missoulian

"Sheesh!"

That's about all I can come up with when I hear about the latest twists and turns in the saga of Initiative 147.

If you haven't been paying attention, I-147 is the citizens' initiative designed to repeal the ban on use of the cyanide leach process in gold and silver mining in Montana that was approved by the voters back in 1998. Backers of the initiative, primarily funded by the mining company, Canyon Resources, secured more than enough signatures to qualify it for the ballot this fall.

My "Sheesh!" response stems from how difficult it is for me to believe that there were that many Montanans willing to sacrifice one of our state's treasures, the Big Blackfoot River.

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MISSOULIAN - July 29, 2004
New group vows to fight mining initiative
By SUSAN GALLAGHER Associated Press Writer

HELENA - Opponents of an initiative to overturn Montana's ban on using cyanide in gold and silver mining have formed a new group to try to defeat the measure on the November ballot.

Save the Blackfoot Vote No on I-147 has a 14-member board consisting largely of southwestern Montana residents, some of them Blackfoot River users.

The primary financial supporter of Initiative 147 is Colorado's Canyon Resources Corp., which wants to mine gold east of Lincoln in the Blackfoot Valley. Efforts to develop the gold project and eventually use cyanide to leach the metal from ore ceased when voters passed the cyanide ban, Initiative 137, in 1998.

Save the Blackfoot is starting to raise money and will advertise against I-147, said Gary Buchanan of Billings, an investment adviser who is the lone eastern Montanan on the board and fishes in the Blackfoot River.

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SAVE THE BLACKFOOT PRESS RELEASE - July 28, 2004
Blackfoot River Group Formed to Fight I-147

Ovando , MT , July 28, 2004 - An organization of Blackfoot landowners, business people, conservationists and Montana taxpayers announced today that they have formed a campaign group to fight I-147, the ballot initiative that repeals Montana's voter-approved ban on open-pit cyanide leach mining.

Save the Blackfoot. VOTE NO on I-147 is very concerned that I-147 is aimed primarily at allowing Colorado's Canyon Resources Mining Company to proceed with plans to construct a huge open-pit cyanide leach mine along the upper Blackfoot River. Canyon Resources has funded 97 percent of the initiative campaign to date.

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BILLINGS GAZETTE - July 24, 2004
Rancher, group fight cyanide initiative
By JENNIFER McKEE Gazette State Bureau

HELENA - A Lincoln-area landowner and a Helena-based environmental group have asked the Montana Supreme Court to prevent a proposed citizen's initiative to overturn the state's ban on cyanide leach mining from appearing on the November ballot.

Mark Gerlach, a ranch foreman near Greenough, and the Montana Environmental Information Center submitted a petition to the state's top court Friday stating that Initiative 147 is unconstitutional, invalid and should not appear on the ballot.

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GREAT FALLS TRIBUNE - July 6, 2004
Things not what they seem with mine cleanup
EDITORIAL

The CR Kendall Mine Corp. announced plans last week to resume reclamation work at its defunct gold mine near Lewistown.

The company intends to recontour the mine's process pads, where cyanide was used to leach gold and silver from ore. By this fall, the site would be covered with three feet of soil and seeded with native species, at a cost of $1.5 million.

Sounds like a step in the right direction, huh?

Maybe to people who haven't followed the Kendall mine saga.

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THE MONTANA STANDARD - March 3, 2004
Cyanide ban targeted
By JENNIFER McKEE of The Standard State Bureau

HELENA - A Whitehall consulting firm, backed by money from mining company Canyon Resources Corp., took the first formal step Tuesday toward repealing Montana's 1998 ban on cyanide leach mining.

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THE MONTANA STANDARD - March 3, 2004
Cyanide ban targeted
By JENNIFER McKEE of The Standard State Bureau

HELENA - A Whitehall consulting firm, backed by money from mining company Canyon Resources Corp., took the first formal step Tuesday toward repealing Montana's 1998 ban on cyanide leach mining.

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