Save the Blackfoot. Vote NO on I-147.
Pollute Water Harm Property Rights Cost Taxpayers Millions Introduce No New Safeguards
WHAT OTHERS SAY ABOUT I-147 AND MINING WITH CYANIDE
...About mining with cyanide

"In my mind the use of cyanide in ore processing probably poses the greatest single threat to the aquatic environment that we're dealing with today. It is something that has not been given proper recognition for the threat that it poses to the environment."

  • Steve Pilcher, former head of Montana's Water Quality Bureau and current executive vice president of the Montana Stockgrowers Association, in May 1992 testimony to the Montana Board of Environmental Review

"I object to cyanide on ethical, economic and ecological grounds."

  • John Baden, PhD, economist and spokesman for the conservative free-market organization Foundation on Economics and the Environment, in a May 28, 2004, op-ed in the Bozeman Chronicle.

"We immediately couldn't breathe at all, and our skin felt like it was on fire...our eyes were burning as if we'd opened them under water in a hot tub."

  • Scott Spano, a Montana DEQ mine regulator, describing his exposure to cyanide gas during an episode in which the agency was trying to neutralize cyanide solution spilling from a leach impoundment at the Zortman-Landusky mine. Spano also told the reporter, as described in the April 10, 1990, Missoulian, that he had to ingest a cyanide antidote from his emergency kit.
...About the recent legacy of mining with cyanide

"We need to get that mess cleaned up. I will continue to do what I can to provide the federal resources necessary to take care of these issues.

  • Sen. Conrad Burns commenting in the Great Falls Tribune Jan. 13, 2003 on language he inserted in an appropriation bills to help fund $33.5 million in reclamation and water treatment liability left to taxpayers by Pegasus Gold at the Zortman-Landusky mine in north-central Montana.

"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.

"This is a financial nightmare."

  • Mark Simonich former director of Montana's Dept. of Environmental Quality and current director of the Montana Dept. of Commerce, speaking to the Helena Independent Record in October 1999 about Montana taxpayers having to pay for protecting water quality at the closed open-pit cyanide-leach mine at Zortman.

"I don't think we can ever be sure we have good water."

  • Mickey Senechal, talking to the Bozeman Chronicle, July 16, 1989, about cyanide and metals contamination found in his drinking water well, the result of pollution from the nearby Golden Sunlight Mine. The company eventually bought the Senechal's property after they and another family was forced to sue for damages.

"It is undisputed that the Zortman-Landusky mines have devastated portions of the Little Rockies, and will have effects on the surrounding area, including the Fort Belknap Reservation for generations. That devastation, and the resulting impact on tribal culture cannot be overstated."

  • U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy quoted in a June 28, 2004, court order spinning from litigation filed by the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine Tribes, and the Fort Belknap Indian Council, against the BLM because of damages the agency allowed to occur from open-pit cyanide leach mining.

"Several million gallons escaped from the Golden Sunlight Mine near Whitehall in 1983 and created an underground plume that regulators say is still drifting slowly through the Jefferson Valley. No one is sure how big it is, how strong it, how far it has gone, or what chemical changes it has undergone."

  • Description of AP reporter Tom Laceky, in a story, "Cyanide Tends to Hide," published in the Missoulian and other papers April 10, 1990.

"This poison destroyed virtually all aquatic life in the Tisza River before entering the Danube." (The Tisza River ) "has been killed. Not even bacteria survived." By this week, the contamination was affecting the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade, where health officials have restricted water use in two suburbs. Hungarian environmental officials are saying the spill represents "the biggest environmental catastrophe since Chernobyl, the world's worst nuclear accident."

  • Bratislav Blazic, Serbian Environmental Minister, commenting on the effects, which included a huge fish kill, of a gold mine spilling cyanide solution into one of Europe 's most fabled rivers. Quoted in MSNBC News, February 15, 2000.

...About the current ban in Montana on new and expanded uses of open-pit cyanide leach mining

"With every new development, the correctness of the voters in passing I-137, the ban on new cyanide leap leach gold mining is reinforced."

  • Great Falls Tribune editorial, October 1999.

"Cyanide is notorious for leaking into and contaminating ground water. When it does, it often harms wildlife and human health and infringes on property rights of neighbors. This is why voters passed Initiative 137 by 52 to 48 percent."

  • Pete Geddes, spokesman for the conservative free market policy organization Foundation on Economics and the Environment, in a Feb. 5, 2003, editorial in the Bozeman Chronicle.

"Let's support responsible development and reclamation rules. Let the people's ban on cyanide stand."

  • Op-ed in the Billings Gazette, March 5, 2003, referring to an attempt -- eventually unsuccessful -- by Canyon Resources and other mining interests to pass a bill in the 2003 Montana Legislature repealing I-137.

...About Canyon Resources, prime funder of the I-147 campaign and sponsor of a proposal to build a huge open-pit cyanide leach operation near the banks of the Blackfoot River.

"What's most troubling about this lawsuit is the fact that Canyon appears to believe the best use of its money is to sue the state over I-137, rather than to prove it can responsibly mine by cleaning up the mess it left at the Kendall mine."

  • Joe Mazurek, Montana Attorney General, referring to Canyon spending money on lawsuits to fight the state instead of on reclaiming its closed mine, in May 12, 2000, Missoulian article.

"There's gold in them thar hills, but there is more in the courtrooms. The company (Canyon Resources) can apparently garner enough money to sue the state, but not enough to pay its bills."

  • Helena Independent Record editorial, October 1999.

"They're taking advantage by threatening people's security in their home and property; and I just find that abominable."

  • Montana State Sen. Jim Elliot, commenting on Canyon notifying private landowners that the company owns mineral rights under their land and that the property owners have two weeks to pay the company or risk having the rights -- most which had little or no value -- sold to someone else.

"What Canyon Resources has done in the North Moccasin Mountains burns my ass."

  • Cliff Edwards, attorney for ranching families near Hilger, Montana, who are suing Canyon resources for damaging water sources on private property. Great Falls Tribune, Oct. 19, 2001.

...About 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.

Montana indeed needs a plan for its economic recovery. Including cyanide mining as an essential part of that plan, however is a return to the ways of our state's past, a past that in many instances left our lands scarred and spent. Is that to be our future as well? Let's hope we're not as stupid as the mining industry believes we are.

  • Nick Ehli, business page editor of the Bozeman Chronicle, in an April 2004 editorial.

"It's nothing new we could not have required before and, in many cases, did."

  • Warren McCullough, Chief of Montana's Environmental Management Bureau quoted in the June 18, 2004, Helena Independent Record when asked if I-147 really included any new restrictions on open-pit cyanide leach mining.

"Montana voters quite sensibly recognized these issues when they approved I-137 in 1998, and there is no real compelling reason to repeal it."

  • Bozeman Chronicle editorial, April 21, 2004, concluding that the existing ban on open-pit cyanide leach mining should stay because issues such as reclamation messes, water pollution and taxpayer liabilities plague this technology.
IMAGE CREDITS: Sign saying, "NOTICE: This creek may be contaminated - Not suitable for drinking water," posted along Colorado's Alamosa River where the cyanide-leach Summitville Mine wiped out fish and other aquatic life fore at least 17 miles in 1992, by the USEPA; The Golden Sunlight Mine, owned by Placer Dome, near Whitehall, Montana, by John Smart; "Kendall mine leaked cyanide," Billings Gazette, February 12, 1991; "Kendall Mine reports 2nd cyanide leak," Billings Gazette, October 2, 1991; "Kendall mine fiasco reinforces I-137 vote," Great Falls Tribune opinion, October 8, 1999; Cartoon illustrating Kendall Mining Co. operating "The Great Reclamation Shell Game," with Montana as the player, scratching its head, Billings Gazette, September 2, 1999.
Save the Blackfoot. Vote NO on I-147. - Paul Roos, treasurer - P.O. Box 68, Ovando, MT 59854 - info@nocyanide.org