Proposed mine by wild Smith River roils Del Norte County California folks

[n2doc]

By Peter Fimrite


The clear, flowing Smith River is a life force in the northern corner of California, where the locals keep a sharp eye out for threats to the pristine water and thriving fish.

That would explain why the folk who live along the river in Del Norte County nearly jumped out of their britches when they learned about a proposed nickel mine along a major tributary of the Smith, the last major river without a dam left in the state.

A London mining company has applied to the U.S. Forest Service to begin exploratory drilling over thousands of acres of forest lands, including Baldface Creek, in Curry County, Ore., which flows into the Smith and helps maintain one of the most abundant natural salmon runs in California.

Steelhead trout, chinook and coho salmon spawn in both Baldface Creek and Smith, a National Wild and Scenic River that also provides Crescent City and the surrounding communities with drinking water.

"Locating a strip mine in the headwaters of the wild and scenic Smith River is like putting ice cubes made with toxic waste in your favorite drink," said Grant Werschkull, the executive director of the Smith River Alliance, in Crescent City. "It's completely outrageous."

more
http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Proposed-mine-by-wild-Smith-River-roils-Del-Norte-5451373.php

[Tikki]

1. I have a feeling this Community is going to win this battle.

I know this area and they are not going to back down for jobs or money.


Tikki

[Faux pas]

2. I'm always wondering...

what the 1% is going to use for food and water when it's all gone. Sickening and Stoopid.

[truedelphi]

3. Greed's hold is all pervasive. and always has been.

Millennia ago, the fairy tale about King Midas was written down to detail an important point, one that generations later, human kind still hasn't bothered to learn.

[Faux pas]

7. Yeah, not much evolving going on here.

LOL I'm sure the righty-fundy-idiot faction would love that statement

[calimary]

4. I think about that, myself. A LOT!

What will the 1% do when it's all gone? When they've dumped and drilled and strip-mined and clear-cut - and it's all gone. Will it be THEN that they finally wake up about climate conditions and good stewardship of the earth? When it's too late?

[Faux pas]

8. Too late is rapidly upon us.

Scorched earth is not a good plan for any future, for sure.

[SunSeeker]

5. Mining is a horrifically destructive enterprise.

Once the materials the corporation wants are out of the ground, the wastes and damage are there for millenia. Many mines are surrounded by piles of mine tailings, spent rock that was never supposed to be unearthed. But once it is exposed to air and water, it produces acid mine drainage that turns rivers it flows into tomato-soup red and burns your skin. The mines from the Roman era are still producing acid mine drainage. We apparently don't know how to stop it, much like how we don't know how to clean up an oil spill.

And that fact that it is a London company (any relation to BP?) just adds insult to injury. Seriously? We're going to even consider letting another country's corporation come here to ruin our environment just to make a quick buck? We have plenty of our own US corporations right here willing to do the same thing.

There would be no mining if the true cost of mining was placed on the corporation doing it. Instead, they get the profit and we get the damage.

[Shrike47]

6. I hope the proposal is squashed, firmly.

[raouldukelives]

9. Better make it a permanent fix. The TPP would/will resolve this swiftly. nt