Protecting Brimstone Mountain (www.dailykos.com).
by Steve Timmer
Jul 11, 2013, 2:00 PM

Protecting Brimstone Mountain 2

The story here Protecting Brimstone Mountain elicited a comment on a Facebook page (We Support Minnesota Mining) linked to in that earlier story. According to Karl B. Andersen:

Environmental groups can serve a purpose and that would be to environmentally improve projects during the planning process.

Which is, of course, exactly what Mining Truth is trying to do. In its current campaign, Mining Truth is asking that the governor and congressional leaders answer four questions before sulfide mines be authorized:

1) Will Minnesota’s waters stay safe and clean?

2) Are there safeguards in place for when things go wrong?

3) Will the company leave the site clean and maintenance-free?

4) Will Minnesota’s taxpayers be protected?

These are simple and straightforward questions that need to be asked of and satisfactorily answered by any proposed mine operator. Failure to get them would be a titanic failure by our political leadership.

According to PolyMet, one of the companies (not from Minnesota, by the way) that proposes to dig a pit mine, it will produce a Brimstone Mountain of sulfide rock: 168,000,000 tons that will make sulfuric acid everytime it rains. For 200 years. Swell. As you will hear in the Mining Truth video below, no sulfide mine has ever — in human history — operated without polluting nearby lakes and rivers.

Andersen seems to believe that Gosh, just be nice to the mining companies, and they will be nice to you. Awfully naive, don’t you think, kids?

Tell you what Karl, get good answers to these four questions for me, and then we can talk.

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