Posted on 07/24/2012 1:02:54 PM PDT by Carriage Hill
I agree but it can still be done.
“llow the Pebble Mine to happen and if the fishing is impacted, close it down.”
As if the enviros wouldn’t secretly poison the water with chemicals that are used in the mine.
The title of this article is misleading and is what I would expect to see on some envirowacko blog. It is not a “gold mine”, it is a COPPER MINE - “80 billion pounds of copper”. The envirowackos always use “gold mine” in a title to give the impression it is greedy miners out to destroy the earth.
We are already dependent on foreign oil, do we really need to be dependent on foreign copper too?
http://www.libertystaruranium.com/
Hope you’re right. My background includes managing a three pit surface coal mine and a 250 ton/hour wash plant so I know something about the process.
An estimated 99 percent of the rock unearthed in sulfide mining is waste that releases sulfuric acid which is a long term threat to human health. Acid mine drainage has damaged or destroyed 40 percent of the watersheds in the western US.
In Colorado, 17 miles of the Alamosa River was rendered dead by drainage from the old Summitville Mine. Eight miles of the Red River in New Mexico was rendered dead by acid leaking from old works. A tailings pond in Montana at the Berkeley Mine killed several hundred snow geese.
Wisconsin has enacted a law called “prove it first,” for copper, gold and other mining mining companies. I think it’s a good idea for Alaska.
I could build a pretty nice waste processing plant for $2B (4% of anticipated revenue)
Anything to make the salmon happy.
In NE Minnesota there are large deposits of copper and nickel and a few other minerals. However, the state’s environmental appointee (by dimwit Governor Mark Dayton) is determined to stop any mining at all. It’s one reason why the usually liberal voters in NE Minnesota are trending toward conservatives now.
You are so right; it is misleading. I forgot to point that out in my original comments. Good catch. America has everything it needs to be totally self-sufficient AND export huge amounts to the world, as we used to do in agriculture.
Old saying, “If your enemies are killing each other, get out of the way”. Maybe some of them will have an epiphany and grow a brain?
In sulfide mining, the rejects are 25 percent larger than they were pre mining. This “swell factor” means a huge, above ground pile that won't fit in the pit. It is virtually impossible to bury or cover up the waste.
My thoughts on this are that space based ground penetrating radar systems will improve to the point we can find the intact magnetite meteors lodged in Earth's otherwise crystaline silicon surface and then mine them for what we need.
The sulfide meteors are a mess ~ but they're usually broken up with the metals leached out into "veins", or maybe even worse, scattered hither and yon over tens of thousands of square miles of disaggregated schist and clay ~ as valuable as this particular site is there are better sources, but we need to find them.
I didn’t mean to imply the title was any fault of yours. It is just a pet peeve of mine when I see journalists call a mine a gold mine, when gold is merely a by-product. In terms of gold, this mine is not that large.
There is going to be an airing of a PBS (barf) documentary on the Pebble project tonight, and of course they have titled it “Alaska Gold”, grrrrrrrrrrr. But, I expect no less from a left-wing propaganda hit-piece from PBS.
http://www.adn.com/2012/07/24/2554281/pbs-frontline-looks-at-pebble.html
I didn’t take it that way, my FRiend. I was glad you caught it and noted it for the record. Thanks for the tip; I’ll record the show and watch it when I get a chance, later tonite.
So, seems like this has been going on for a long time and no one can come up with a better way of doing things. I guess they’ll just have to wait till they do. It’s not going anywhere.
How’s Table Rock Lake doing? I used to live in Spfld. My favorite place was the little beach at Pomme de Terre. Always took my camera to take pics of the cedars while my son swam.
I’m at Lake of the Ozarks, a bit north of Table Rock. We have plenty of water, even with the drought. Truman Reservior, above our lake, has something to do with this. Lake water is 90.
It is awfully hot. Air is 102 or 107 F.
Makes me wish for our days in Minnesota...
At what point is the tyranny of our federal idiots going to be discarded? Just start the digging and call the media and all officials and let them know how many jobs the feds want to destroy now!
$500 billion can pay for a lot of protection up-front.
Where, by the way, were the salmon breeding during the last ice age a few thousand years ago? I saw some biologist talking about the danger of underground movement of waters in this area-- really? Through permafrost?
Screw the salmon, raise them in a damn tank if you want them!
Mine where the minerals are, drill where the oil is, and cut down the trees where the forests are, not where the enviros say you can!
In 1978, a broad new federal surface mining and reclamation law was put on the books mandating repair of surface mined coal lands.
Most coal states had their own top soil reclaim standards but these were superseded by a new agency in the Department of the Interior.
Hard rock mining was specifically exempted.
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