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Mining Conflict and Opposition

The cost of green energy: The nation’s biggest lithium mine may be going up on a site sacred to Native Americans – by Chloe Atkins and Christine Romo (NBC News – August 11, 2022)

https://www.nbcnews.com/

The huge project on public land, approved by the Trump administration in its final days, has sparked an outcry and a lawsuit, but opposition among Native Americans is not unanimous.

Thacker Pass, a remote valley in the high desert of northern Nevada, will always be sacred for Gary McKinney of the Paiute-Shoshone Tribe. He often visits to honor ancestors said to be killed here by U.S. soldiers in 1865. “It’s been a gathering place for our people,” said McKinney, who lives on the Duck Valley Reservation, 100 miles to the east.

McKinney and others are now fighting a new battle over an open-pit mine planned for Thacker Pass, which sits atop a massive lode of lithium. Driven by soaring demand for lithium, which is vital to electric car batteries and renewable energy, a company called Lithium Americas hopes to break ground this year on the biggest lithium mine in the U.S.

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Mining giant Rio Tinto hit by legal battle over sacred Apache site at Oak Flat in Arizona – by Francesca Washtell (Financial Mail/This Money – August 6, 2022)

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/

The serene Oak Flat upland lies in the heart of Arizona. With its beautiful peaks and forest, it is a beloved spot for campers, hikers and rock climbers. Above all, it is the centre of the San Carlos Apache tribe’s religion, a place of devotion where their gods dwell and they still perform traditional ceremonies.

But it is now at the centre of a dispute between the tribe and FTSE 100 giant Rio Tinto. It is also shaping up to be an acid test of the mining group’s claims that it is determined to respect sacred sites.

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Opinion: Mining activity threatens ecosystem at Wolf Lake – by Naomi Grant, Franco Mariotti and Viki Mather (Sudbury Star – July 6, 2022)

 

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Naomi Grant, Franco Mariotti, and Viki Mather are steering committee members with the Wolf Lake Coalition.

Wolf Lake is the largest remaining old-growth red pine forest in North America. This globally significant and endangered ecosystem is a recreational paradise known around the world. It has been recognized as a fish sanctuary, a candidate for park status, and as a priority natural area for protection.

It is also the site of active mining leases and claims. Wolf Lake’s Forest Reserve status protects it from logging but allows mining activity, with the intention for the lands to be added to the provincial park or conservation reserve when the mining claim or lease expires through normal processes.

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More uranium mining near the Grand Canyon? Might as well just poison our water now – by Carletta Tilousi (AZ Central.com – June 21, 2022)

https://www.azcentral.com/

Tribal leader Carletta Tilousi is a citizen of the Havasupai Tribe and sits on the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council.

The Pinyon Plain uranium mine sits fewer than 10 miles from Grand Canyon National Park on the ancestral homelands of my people, the Havasupai, the “people of the blue-green water.” As the guardians of the Grand Canyon, we are fighting to protect our sacred lands and waters against harm that federal and state agencies continue to permit.

The Biden administration has promised to prioritize environmental justice and listen to Indigenous voices. Yet it is considering moving forward with a uranium reserve program that would use taxpayer dollars to buy uranium from operations like the Pinyon Plain Mine.

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Canada mining push puts major carbon sink and Indigenous lands in the crosshairs – by Spoorthy Raman (Mongabay.com – June 2, 2022)

https://news.mongabay.com/

Since the last ice age, wide rivers have meandered toward the southern shores of Hudson Bay in Canada, to join its salty waters. On their way, they’ve created swaths of wetlands, filled with carbon-packed peat bog. The Cree Indigenous people who have lived here for millennia call these peatlands Yehewin Aski, or “the Breathing Lands,” for they believe these wetlands act as the lungs of Mother Earth.

“It’s such a watery landscape,” says Lorna Harris, a peatland ecosystem scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society Canada. “Every peatland is connected to every other peatland that is next to it, which is then connected to the streams, which go to the rivers downstream, all the way down to Hudson Bay and James Bay.”

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Two fires hit key copper projects in Peru amid protests -sources – by Marcelo Rochabrun (Reuters – June 1, 2022)

https://www.reuters.com/

LIMA, May 31 (Reuters) – Two fires broke out at key copper projects in Peru, sources told Reuters, hitting MMG Ltd’s (1208.HK) Las Bambas copper mine and Southern Copper Corp’s (SCCO.N) planned Los Chancas project, amid escalating local protests.

Peru, the world’s No. 2 copper producer, is suffering increasingly violent community protests against mines in recent months, as communities demand higher benefits from the industry and prices for the red metal remain high.

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Biden Admin Blocks Yet Another Massive Mining Project, Hobbling Its Own Climate Agenda – by Thomas Catenacci (Ohio Star – May 31, 2022)

https://theohiostar.com/

The Biden administration proposed stringent clean water restrictions on a watershed in southwest Alaska Wednesday, a potential fatal blow to a planned critical mineral development project.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it would review a proposal to prohibit the use of the Bristol Bay watershed as a discharge site for the Pebble Project, a mining project that would produce about 1.5 billion tons of critical minerals, including copper and molybdenum, over 20 years.

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Proposal to ban mining near Minnesota’s Boundary Waters sets off battle in Congress – by Jacob Fischler (Iowa Capital Dispatch – May 30, 2022)

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A proposal to ban mining near the most popular wilderness area in the country is dividing members of Congress along party lines following President Joe Biden’s decision earlier this year to block federal approval of a new mine.

Democrats on the House Natural Resources Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee said last week they supported Minnesota U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum’s bill to permanently protect nearly a quarter-million acres of Superior National Forest near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness from the polluting byproducts of mining for nickel, cobalt, copper and other minerals.

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EPA deals fresh blow to PolyMet’s $1 billion copper-nickel mine – by Editor (Mining.com – May 5, 2022)

https://www.mining.com/

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has dealt a fresh blow to PolyMet Mining’s (TSX: POM) plans to build an open pit copper-nickel mine in Minnesota, by recommending the US Army Corps of Engineers not re-issue a key water-related permit.

The agency said this week the $1 billion NorthMet project, the first large-scale project to be permitted within the Duluth Complex in northeastern Minnesota, risked increasing levels of mercury and other pollutants in the St. Louis River downstream from the proposed mine.

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How mining for clean energy could undermine Biden’s EJ goals – by Jael Holzman and Scott Waldman (E&E News – April 19, 2022)

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The Biden administration has said it is activating all the levers of government to advance environmental justice for people of color. However, one of President Joe Biden’s own policies for climate action might challenge his commitment to racial equity.

Earlier this month, Biden invoked a wartime law to free up federal funds for domestic mining activities for five metals sought by manufacturers of zero-carbon energy products: lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite and manganese. It was a move that, if successful, could help open mines across the country to support the production of electric vehicles and other technologies that are needed to reduce the country’s use of fossil fuels.

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With court’s backing, Ecuador’s indigenous block Amazon mining – by Alexandra Valencia (The Star – April 1, 2022)

https://www.thestar.com.my/

SINANGOE, Ecuador (Reuters) – Armed with spears, their faces painted, members of the A’i Cofan community’s indigenous guard prepare to patrol the banks of the Aguarico River in Ecuador’s Amazon, ready to confiscate equipment and call in the police if they find miners on their ancestral land.

“We go down (the river) and document all the people who have entered,” guard coordinator Nixon Andy, 24, said. “When we come across strangers on our territory we speak peacefully, but if there isn’t respect there are authorities to whom we can report.”

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Coconino Voices: Going green? Not without mining – by Frank Bain (Arizona Daily Sun – March 28, 2022)

https://azdailysun.com/

Mining is not a “predicament” as the chairman claims; mining exists
because of people’s desire to live in a modern world, not the Stone Age.

Going green — sounds great, but doing so won’t be easy. To go green, we will need tremendous amounts of minerals including lithium, copper, cobalt, nickel and uranium. To get these minerals, new mines will need to be developed.

Geologists have found deposits of these minerals here in the United States. Environmentalists have come out against developing these new discoveries, citing numerous unfounded reasons that have stymied the development of these badly needed minerals.

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Bishop in Brussels to lobby against Investment in Mining – by Ellen Teague (Independent Catholic News – March 27, 2022)

https://www.indcatholicnews.com/

A delegation from Latin America, including a Catholic bishop, has travelled to Europe to raise awareness and urge support for communities suffering from destructive mining. It called for disinvestment from mining.

The members of the delegation met with European parliamentarians in Brussels on 24 March to denounce the relationship between dispossession and extractive impacts in Latin America.

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NDP to retable bill to block coal mining in Rocky Mountains – by Bob Weber (Canadian Press/Edmonton Journal – March 14, 2022)

https://edmontonjournal.com/

EDMONTON — Alberta’s United Conservative government has refused for the second time to move ahead with an Opposition bill that would have placed legally enforceable restrictions on coal mining in the Rocky Mountains. That shuffles the Eastern Slopes Protection Act back to a legislative committee that could rule the bill won’t proceed at all.

On Monday, the Opposition New Democrats retabled the private member’s bill that would have substituted actual legislation for an order from Energy Minister Sonya Savage restricting coal mining in the Rocky Mountains. NDP Leader Rachel Notley, the bill’s sponsor, said a politician’s promise isn’t enough to protect those much-loved landscapes.

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Grassy Narrows First Nation looking at next options to protect land from mining activity in Ontario – by Logan Turner (CBC Thunder Bay – March 1, 2022)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay

Ontario mining recorder refused First Nation request to have prospective miners notified of legal risks

Members of a First Nation in northwestern Ontario are back to the drawing board in their attempts to protect traditional lands from continued impacts of industrial activity.

Most recently, leadership from Asubpeeschoseewagong Anishinabek (Grassy Narrows) asked Ontario to inform companies and prospectors about the risks of staking a mineral claim in Grassy Narrows’s traditional territory.

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