If you can't grow it. . .

Color me surprised. The US Supreme Court rejected a case where a Colorado based mining company was claiming that Montana illegally TOOK property from them when they passed a series of bans on cyanide leach mining. Canyon Resources claims that they own mineral rights near Lincoln and that by not being able to use cyanide to leach mine, Montanans TOOK their property. The US Supreme Court basically told them to GET THE HELL OUT.

High fives all around.

In 1998 Montana banned the use of cyanide heap-leaching to extract minerals, primarily gold. In 2004, Montana rejected an effort to overturn the ban. Montanans are not known to be environmentalists, but we have all seen what happens when mining runs unchecked, Golden Sunlight (dead trumpeter swans), Zortman-Landusky (dead Indians), Lewistown's Kendall Mine (dead cows) etc. Here is the problem, these mines were permitted MANY years ago and the bond they posted to reclaim the land is drastically underfunded to cleanup the site after the mining company goes tits up - like they always do. Thus ending up in Superfund which is funded when you and I pay our taxes. It is not a matter of mining or not, they can still mine using other methods, it is just that cyanide makes it easier for them. Cyanide grabs the gold or other minerals from the rock that contains them resulting in an easy cheesy separation process that I won't go in to. Essentially this leaves gold and giant ponds filled with Cyanide laden water. Birds land in this water and immediately die. Cyanide leaches into groundwater. . . I could go on, but I think you get the point.

This isn't going to stop Canyon Resources. They are going to bog down courts until they get their way. They keep running this economic growth from mining bullshit, you can read about it here. I say, if you can't grow it, you have to mine it, but that doesn't mean cyanide. Not at all. I am starting to sound like a broken record, but jobs do NOT have to equal pollution.

Proponents of cyanide leach mining say that environmental groups use the word CYANIDE to scare people, that it is a reactionary word. Hell yes, it is, cyanide = death. Here is a brief history of Cyanide Leach Mining by MEIC (a group I typically don't associate with). These cyanide ponds always leak, even with new technology, all they can do is reduce the amount that is leaked. How many lives are worth gold? Montana voters chose zero, zero lives are worth gold.

Now if we can get the US Supreme Court to protect the Clean Water Act, they all get green stars. Hope, hope hope. Like my mom says, hope (wish) in one hand and shit in the other - see which fills up faster.