Your Weekly Campaign Update

Your Weekly Campaign Update
By Tammy Johnson
Campaign Manager


Dateline: September 8, 2004

hxxp://www.yeson147.com/weekly_update.htm

Campaign Files "Friend of the Court" Response

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

hxxp://www.yeson147.com/friend_of_court_release.htm

Yes on I-147: Opponents fear mining, not cyanide

By GLENN MARX
Whitehall Ledger Publisher

Negotiation, cooperation and compromise are all constructive and useful tools in creating public policy, but every now and then you have to draw a line in the sand and create a point to do battle.

The supporters of I-147 have done that, and I applaud them for it.

Proponents of I-147 have taken on the politics of environmental regulation in a ballot initiative that would reverse the 1998 duplicity of I-137, a ban on the use of cyanide in mining. The issue in 1998 wasn't cyanide, and the issue in 2004 isn't cyanide, either.

Cyanide is not, was not, and will not be a major mining problem in Montana. The worst "mining cyanide calamities" in Montana involve a mine in Zortman where traces of cyanide were found in local drinking water. Once detected, the problem was resolved. No one was injured or ill, and the water was promptly cleaned up.

Another "mining cyanide calamity" was near Whitehall with Golden Sunlight Mine. A liner in an impoundment leaked and cyanide found its way into the groundwater. GSM purchased the land above the groundwater, fixed the impoundment liner, instituted a series of pump back wells and water quality monitoring sites, and although some cyanide remains in the groundwater, no cyanide reached surface water. No people were injured or ill.

Truth is, cyanide is everywhere. It's in your computer, in nylon, jewelry, your blue jeans, film, your garden hose, cleaning agents, vitamins, plastics, pharmaceuticals and even in food. Cyanide naturally occurs in spinach, almonds, cherries, coffee, lima beans and more foods. Cyanide is in table salt.

mehr:

hxxp://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?display=rednews/...-yes-on-i147.inc

I-147 would repeal 1998 cyanide leach mining ban

By GREG LEMON Staff Reporter

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Montana voters will again have a chance to decide whether to allow cyanide leach mining in the state six years after they voted to outlaw it.

Ballot Initiative 147 would allow the use of cyanide leach mining to extract gold and silver from ore mined in open pits and also reinstate mineral rights that have expired since 1998, when the mining practice was outlawed.

Proponents of the initiative say there are new environmental safeguards written into the measure and that allowing cyanide leach mining again would boost the state's economy.

Opponents say it forces the state to allow a mining company with a bad environmental track record to build a large pit mine near the headwaters of the Blackfoot River, in western Montana, where they would use cyanide to extract the gold.

mehr:

hxxp://www.ravallinews.com/articles/2004/10/15/news/news02.txt

$2.2 million raised to repeal cyaninde leach mine ban

By JENNIFER McKEE - IR State Bureau - 10/19/04

HELENA - The out-of-state mining company behind an effort to repeal Montana's ban on cyanide leach mining gave nearly $850,000 to the effort - an average of about $23,000 every day - over the past five weeks, state records filed Monday show.

Miners, Merchants and Montanans for Jobs and Economic Opportunity, the group formed to promote Initiative 147, has raised a total of $2.2 million with 98 percent of that coming from one Colorado mining company, Canyon Resources Corp., state records show. Canyon gave $848,005 in both cash and in-kind donations between Sept. 7 and Oct. 13, according to information filed with the state commissioner of political practices. The company has given $2.16 million so far

I-147 would repeal a 1998 citizen-passed ban on cyanide leach mining, restore the mineral leases lost since the ban passed and require new environmental safeguards.

Canyon wanted to build a large cyanide leach gold mine near Lincoln when voters outlawed the practice.

Foes of I-147, a group called Save the Blackfoot, raised $212,138 in the past five weeks, an average of about $5,700 every day. They have spent $195,117.

mehr:

hxxp://www.helenair.com/articles/2004/10/19/montana/a05101904_02.txt

Tuesday, October 26, 2004  
Montana News:

Cyanide mining dates back a century

By JENNIFER McKEE - IR State Bureau - 10/26/04

Sides debate success, failure of practice at different mining sites

HELENA — When the now-bankrupt Zortman and Landusky cyanide heap leach gold mines opened in the 1970s, the best minds in science and industry thought cleaning up after them would be a simple affair: Wash off the cyanide, deal with the pit and be done.

But they were wrong, said Warren McCullough, chief of the Department of Environmental Quality's Environmental Management Bureau.

What happened next depends on your point of view and is the central issue in the debate over Initiative 147, an effort to repeal the state's ban on cyanide leach mining. Either we spent years learning the realities of the cleanup and its costs and are now better able to properly run such mines today. Or we have learned that these mines are simply too dangerous, too expensive and too often left to government to clean up to allow any more to open.

mehr:

hxxp://www.helenair.com/articles/2004/10/26/montana_top/a01102604_04.txt