[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 10 (Thursday, January 25, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S370-S371]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
NEW WORLD MINE
Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, as everyone in this body knows I have
been a vocal proponent of reforming the 1872 mining law. This 124-year-
old anachronism continues to permit the extraction of billions of
dollars' worth of hardrock minerals from public land without
compensating the taxpayers and in a manner that causes significant
environmental degradation. Unfortunately, the new majority in Congress
has little or no interest in meaningful reform of the mining law.
During the congressional recess an article appeared in the New York
Times discussing the proposed New World gold mine which would be
located within 2.5 miles of Yellowstone National Park. It is painfully
obvious that unless action is taken soon, Yellowstone will be gravely
imperiled. In fact, the World Heritage Commission recently designated
Yellowstone National Park a world heritage site in danger primarily due
to the proposed mine.
Mr. President, some of my colleagues from the West argue that mining
is a primary way of life in their States and any changes in the mining
law that made it more difficult to pollute the land or provided for the
payment of meaningful royalties would have a negative impact on their
States. However, as the New York Times article points out, their
constituents do not necessarily agree. In fact, much of the western
economy depends on pristine land, air, and water. Certain mining
operations are not synonymous with such conditions, especially in the
absence of more stringent environmental restrictions.
The scars of previous mining operations are littered throughout the
country. In fact, 59 sites on the Superfund national priority list are
directly related to mining. According to the Bureau of Mines, there are
180,000 acres of land and 12,000 miles of rivers that have been
polluted by waste from abandoned mines. The cost to taxpayers to clean
up this mess will be astronomical. Yet no one seems willing to do
anything to prevent future disasters, such as the New World mine. Mr.
President, I urge my colleagues to carefully consider what we may be
doing to our national treasures, such as Yellowstone Park, if we do not
act.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a report that appeared in
the January 7 issue of the New York Times regarding the ``Montana
Mining Town Fights Gold-Rush Plan'' dealing with the gold mine that is
about to be built just outside the gates of Yellowstone, be printed in
the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the New York Times, Jan. 7, 1996]
Montana Mining Town Fights Gold-Rush Plan
(By James Brooke)
Cooke City, MT.--From Canadian mining barons to President
Clinton to American environmentalists, the bitterest mining
controversy of recent months has swirled like an alpine
blizzard around this tiny mountain village of 80 people.
On one side, Canada's largest natural resources
conglomerate is determined to dig $750 million of gold and
silver out of a nearby 8,900-foot peak. On the other,
environmentalists assert that the mine would inevitably leak
acid into Yellowstone National Park, three miles to the west.
Often overlooked in the international clash of press
releases and lawsuits are the residents here who would be
affected. In a town founded by gold miners, one might expect
to find people enthusiastic about a plan to open the state's
largest gold mine on Henderson Mountain, a peak named after a
gold panner. But skepticism about the proposal is
surprisingly plentiful here, reflecting a growing hostility
to mining in Montana, a state that is shifting its economic
base from mining to tourism.
Even at the Miner's Saloon, amid mining decor of picks and
shovels, criticism is rife. ``I'm vehemently against it,''
said Chris Warren, a 24-year-old resident, who was echoed by
the bartender and four men nursing drinks at the bar.
In dissent, the saloon keeper, Larry Wicker, said he
appreciated the younger generation's patronage, but not their
views on mining. ``If it weren't for the miners, Cooke City
would be part of little Russia,'' he said, referring to this
sliver of private land surrounded by Government land,
including Yellowstone and two national forests.
In a tribute to Montana's 19th century mining origins, the
state seal bears the motto, ``oro y plata,'' gold and silver.
But Montana's combined income from mining and logging was
surpassed in the early 1990's by recreational tourism--fly
fishing, elk hunting, snowmobiling, hiking, camping and river
rafting. Anglers alone spend $410 million a year in this
state.
The shifting political winds from this economic
transformation are buffeting the Henderson Mountain mine
project, which cannot proceed until it wins environmental
clearances from various state and Federal authorities. The
process could easily take two years or more.
On the far side of a mountain saddle here, the mining
company, Crown Butte Mines Inc., would hollow out Henderson
Mountain at the rate of 1,500 tons a day. Working at almost
9,000 feet, the miners would combat a forbidding climate that
includes 23 frost-free days a year and about 40 feet of
snowfall a year.
Crown Butte purchased the mining rights on the private land
after deciding that technological advances and new
discoveries would make mining profitable.
Environmentalists, pointing out Old Faithful geyser only 60
miles to the southwest, said the proposed mining site is in
the nation's secondmost seismically active area after the San
Andreas Fault. They contend that an earthquake would rupture
a disposal site filled with potentially toxic waste from the
operation.
But Crown Butte Mines maintains that it would build a dam
strong enough to withstand any tremor of the magnitude
registered in the last 150 years. While mining advocates
often paint their environmental opponents as outsiders or
newcomers, polls indicate that Montana voters are
increasingly hostile to new mines and to economic growth,
especially if it means new residents.
In a poll of 817 registered voters conducted in December
for The Billings Gazette, 48 percent of the respondents said
that economic benefits would not outweigh possible
environmental damage from the project here, the New World
Mine. Only 29 percent favored the mine.
Montana, with a population of 850,000, has only six people
per square mile. But 31 percent of respondents called for no
more population growth, and 45 percent agreed with the
statement: ``We're approaching our limits.'' The poll's
margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3 percentage
points.
The dispute over the mine may heat up soon when the United
States Forest Service releases an environmental impact
statement.
In the six months leading up to this report, world
environmental attention focused on this remote mountain
village. A city in name only, Cooke has a one-room school and
a three-block-long Main Street that ends in a snowdrift half
the year.
On Aug. 25, President Clinton thundered over Cooke City's
proposed mine site in a military helicopter. Afterward, he
ordered a two-year ban on mining in the 4,500 acres of
National Forest land surrounding Henderson Mountain.
In September, the village visitors were members of the
World Heritage Committee,
[[Page S371]]
which monitors sites designated by international treaty as having
``universal value to mankind.'' Citing the mine project,
among other threats, the committee added Yellowstone to its
list of ``World Heritage in Danger.''
To drum up support, Crown Butte hired as a consultant Birch
Bayh, a former United States Senator with a record as an
environmentalist. The largest investor in Crown Butte is
Noranda Inc., Canada's largest natural resources company,
which is controlled by the Toronto financiers Edward and
Peter Bronfman.
The debate here speaks of larger tensions between mining
and recreation in the state. ``Mining is an anachronism now--
the town has become dependent on Yellowstone for its
livelihood,'' said Jim Barett, a local carpenter who is
chairman of the Beartooth Alliance, a local environmental
group that opposes the mine. ``To plop this huge industrial
complex into here would not only disrupt our lives, but would
have serious environmental consequences.''
Some people think the mine would mar tourism for a town
that has four campgrounds, three hunting outfitters, three
snowmobile rental companies and 15 hotels, motels and bed and
breakfasts. But at Joan and Bill's Family Restaurant on Main
Street, a patron, Lyle Hendricks, said the $100 million
mining investment would outweigh any harm to tourism.
``People worry about the stress of losing a job when the mine
plays out in 20 years,'' said Mr. Hendricks, a bearded man
who builds steel Quonset huts here. ``What about the stress
of not having a job now?''
After Mr. Hendricks left, the waitress, Jennifer Mullee,
20, commented, ``In 10 years, the mining company will be
gone, and the land will be destroyed for our children.''
Opinion surveys of Montana adults indicate that women
oppose mining by far greater margins than men.
Mine supporters like the saloon keeper, Mr. Wicker, say
other mines have proved safe. In Jardine, Mont., he said, an
underground gold mine has burrowed to ``within yards'' of the
Yellowstone Park with no ill result.
A fifth generation Montanan and a mining engineer by
training, Mr. Wicker dismissed the mine's opponents as
``flatlanders, people from Nebraska.'' ``Everyone who gets
here says, `I'm the last person here, I've got my little
piece of Montana,' '' said Mr. Wicker, who plans to open a
poker room and expand his saloon hours if the mine is
approved.
Cooke City is a far cry from the 19th century gold rush
days when 5,000 raucous miners packed the town.
For half the year, the only way to get to Cody, Wyo., the
nearest large city, about 40 miles away, is to travel by
snowmobile over Colter Pass. A year-round mining operation
would keep the road to Cody plowed.
Mining officials promise to leave local creek water cleaner
than when they found it. As a legacy of past mines, sections
of local streams still run rust red from acid drainage.
``We can still use some of the money made from the mine to
clean up the area, to backfill the old mine sites,'' Joseph
J. Baylls, president of Crown Butte, said in a telephone
interview from Toronto. ``At the end of the day, it will be
better than today.''
But experience has left many Montanans skeptical of mining
companies. ``In 20 years, the town will boom and bust, just
like Butte,'' said Matt Schneider, the Mining Saloon's 22-
year-old antimining bartender.
Long fabled as ``The Richest Hill on Earth,'' the gold and
copper deposits of Butte, Mont., petered out in recents
decades, leaving a legacy of pollution and unemployment. The
Atlantic Richfield Company inherited much responsibility for
the environmental mess in 1983 when it bought the principal
Butte operator, the Anaconda Minerals Company.
In October, in a move that reflected Montana's tougher
stand towards mining companies, the State Justice Department
sent Arco a cleanup bill of $713 million.
Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I wonder if the Senator from Kansas is
prepared, or does she need a little additional time to get ready?
Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, I am ready to go and, rather than call
for a quorum, will get started on some comments that I would like to
make.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
The Chair informs the Senator that there are 4 minutes remaining
under the control of the majority in morning business.
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