Save the Blackfoot. Vote NO on I-147.
Pollute Water Harm Property Rights Cost Taxpayers Millions Introduce No New Safeguards
There is nothing new in I-147 that would protect neighboring private property rights, prevent water pollution, or protect taxpayers.
FACT: All of the environmental criteria outlined in I-147 were State of Montana requirements or standard operating practices before the cyanide ban was passed. The Director of Montana's Department of Environmental Quality has stated there are NO NEW environmental safeguards in I-147.

FACT: According to records at the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, all five of the currently permitted open pit, cyanide-leach mines in Montana have water quality problems that the companies have been unable to prevent with current technology - the same technology industry spokespeople tout as "new" in I-147.

All the safeguards required in the proposed initiative were available when cyanide leach mining was legal.

  • Comment from Jan Sensibaugh, director of the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, said all of the environmental safeguards required in the proposed initiative were available when cyanide leach mining was legal. -- Paraphrased by Jennifer McKee, Montana Standard article March 25, 2004.

"It's not something we're ever going to be able to walk away from."

  • Warren McCullough, mining regulator for Montana's Dept. of Environmental Quality, referring to ongoing water quality pollution taxpayers will pay to fix at the closed Beal Mountain Mine near Anaconda in a July 14, 2002 Great Falls Tribune story.

"Water treatment will have to go on for hundreds of years, possibly forever."

  • Wayne Jepson, mining regulator from the Montana Dept. of Environmental Quality, talking to the Helena Independent-Record, May 3, 2002, about pollution from the Zortman-Landusky open-pit cyanide-leach mine.
IMAGE CREDITS: Acid drainage from cyanide leach mine in Colorado pollutes stream, by EPA; "Pull plug on future cyanide gold mines," Great Falls Tribune editorial, October 27, 1998; "Disaster proves wisdom of cyanide ban," Missoulian editorial, February 16, 2000; "Mines' acid runoff may be forever," Billings Gazette, March 19, 2003.
Save the Blackfoot. Vote NO on I-147. - Paul Roos, treasurer - P.O. Box 68, Ovando, MT 59854 - info@nocyanide.org