The growing brouhaha in Leadville is beginning to look like a Fellini film – no, make that “Fargo” the movie. Competing television crews are on street corners hanging behind their reporters-on-assignment who are clutching their camel-hair full length overcoats to their chilly chins looking nervously over their shoulders for fear of avalanche, grizzlies, and the few toothless ruffians who comprise some of our colorful mountain character. These poor lost souls are wondering to themselves why they are not the star anchor person in the fancy suit with makeup and hairspray sitting comfortably in front of the video clip as opposed to being the roving reporter who has to drive up the pass in the van with the big extension-transmitter on top…
It’s a mad mad world up in Leadville right now. Don’t go unless, of course, you want to visit the National Mining Hall of Fame, which is a great stop on any day. You might see something today like a fire drill only it’ll be flood warning drill with tornado sirens (Leadville’s got tornado sirens???) Families are supposed to “evacuate in an orderly fashion”, which the locals (the ones who can read) only watch with amazing indifference to the spectacle while the non-English speaking population tries to quell the fear in their hearts and get a grip on what in the Heck is really happening around there… When is the mountain going to explode its gorge of polluted, toxic water steaming with isotopes of arsenic and mercury?
I’m gonna go to Mexico and log some core. True. I’ve had it with the journalists reporting on the potential of a mining disaster comparable to Summitville. What in the Heck does Summitville have to do with this? And why do people who have actually never seen Summitville let alone know what really went on there always ALWAYS yammer the word, S-U-M-M-I-T-V-I-L-L-E, like the mere utterance of this is going cause us miners to quake and crawl under the bed like bad dogs?
The first time I ever heard of Summitville was in grad school. Summitville was being taught in an economic geology program as what not to do. So was Butte, Montana. So was hydraulic wasting of river banks in the 1880’s. Summitville happened 24 years ago before we even had car seats for kids or recycling. My new retort: “Summitville is why we have mining regulations, you fool.” Try this on:
“Summitville catalyzed national debates about the environmental effects of modern mining activities, and became the focus of arguments for proposed revisions to the 1872 Mining Law governing mining activities on public lands. In early 1993, the State of Colorado, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), Colorado State University, San Luis Valley agencies, downstream water users, private companies, and individuals began a multi-disciplinary research program to provide needed scientific information on Summitville’s environmental problems and downstream environmental effects. Detailed results of this multi-agency effort were presented, along with legal and policy issues, at the Summitville Forum in January, 1995, at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado.” USGS Open File Report 95 – 23. “The Summitville Mine and its Downstream Effects.”
Thank you Summitville. You are a historic story with unexpected positive impact for the future. I am interested in how we mine today and how we will mine tomorrow.
Now, off to Mexico where they like mining. Besides, if no one is logging core then what are we going to do with ourselves in corporate?
Post a Comment