Mark W
Well-known member
I too love the BWC and have been there more than a few times. I do have some questions.
1. Years before, the mercury found around the area was found to be from power plants, same with acid rain so to say the mercury is from a mine I don't think can be said to be the only source.
2. People in northern Minnesota (especially the iron range area) are hurting for jobs. The old taconite mines open and close on a whim (my opinion) based upon many factors, the major one being the politicians mucking around with regulations that make it uneconomical to continue mining. Enter a new group of legislators, with new lobbyists and the regs change again and mining starts up. And I'm not just talking about MN legislators, just as much Fed's as well. Put a tariff on Chinese solar panels and the Chinese put a tariff on US made steel which shuts down US steel production which then shuts down taconite mining. Thousands are laid off.
3, I've been to many mines around the world. Some are bad, some are real bad. Some are not. Unfortunately the world needs products that are mined. Where will the supply of copper come from in the future? Most comes from Chile (used to be 38% of the world's copper usage - not sure now). Chinese were buying up every pound of produced copper which drove up the prices to unsustainable levels. I was down at the Chilean mines when there was a worldwide copper shortage. Their government was so corrupt that they would not allow new water wells to be drilled for a new mine site without big bribes being paid. Mining companies started pumping water in from the coast near Antofagasta 100's of miles away. Had to build desalination plants near the oceans to supply the water. All added cost to the copper. All due to politicians getting in the way (and corruption). So does the world rely on Chile to supply its copper needs or do new places where there is copper need to be found? It is a trade off I realize. Oh, many of these Chilean copper mines were well run with good records. The leach piles could be messy but if built properly, worked well and did not pollute. They are going to be there for all of eternity no doubt and IMO rather ugly. They are a pretty color of turquoise though.
So, where do you draw the line? The proposed, and approved mines are outside the BWC. So how far away from the BWC do you limit any mining activity?
Another example. While the SEMOLMD (Southeast Missouri Led Mining District) has had many problems (waste, tailing ponds, etc...), at one time it was the largest lead producer in the world. The methodology of getting "the lead out" of the rock has changed over the years with the most recent being chemical flotation. The mined material would get crushed at the mine site (some of it underground and a sight to be seen) and then through several processes where the last step would float the lead in a chemical sludge. The sludge was scraped of and then loaded into trucks to be trucked over 100 miles away to the Herculaneum smelter. Smelting of lead is not exactly a clean process but Doe Run (lead mining company that owned the smelter) had spent millions of dollars to continually upgrade the smelter to meet ever demanding regulations. At the same time, they were investing millions of dollars in a totally new process to refine the lead that utilized electro winning processes instead of heat (cleaner process). It was an expensive process but very promising. Doe Run discontinued the research due to expense and from environmentalists who wouldn't allow it as they only saw it as bad because it was still lead. We lose.
Doe Run was forced to shut down it's smelting operations when it could no longer economically smelt lead. It was the last primary smelter in the US. The lead concentrate from the Missouri mines is now trucked to a port, loaded onto ships and shipped to China which smelts the lead we consume. While many applications can use recycled lead, many cannot. We now rely on China to provide us our primary lead. Wouldn't be hard for China to shut down its shipments of lead to the US as it has done to several vital raw materials already. So we are at the whim of the Chinese for a vital raw material - again. I can foresee in the near term the environmentalists going after secondary lead recyclers as the process to recover lead is not exactly pretty and clean either. Once the secondary lead producers are shut down, the US will no longer be able to supply it's needs.
Anyway, a long ramble. Please realize I am not saying that mining near the BWC is a good thing, I'm just trying to point out that we can't have it both ways. If we want to continue to live the way we do, we can't rely on unstable parts of the world to become the only suppliers of these vital raw materials and finished products. We can't be completely "green" and be safe and secure at the same time.
Off the soapbox.
Mark
1. Years before, the mercury found around the area was found to be from power plants, same with acid rain so to say the mercury is from a mine I don't think can be said to be the only source.
2. People in northern Minnesota (especially the iron range area) are hurting for jobs. The old taconite mines open and close on a whim (my opinion) based upon many factors, the major one being the politicians mucking around with regulations that make it uneconomical to continue mining. Enter a new group of legislators, with new lobbyists and the regs change again and mining starts up. And I'm not just talking about MN legislators, just as much Fed's as well. Put a tariff on Chinese solar panels and the Chinese put a tariff on US made steel which shuts down US steel production which then shuts down taconite mining. Thousands are laid off.
3, I've been to many mines around the world. Some are bad, some are real bad. Some are not. Unfortunately the world needs products that are mined. Where will the supply of copper come from in the future? Most comes from Chile (used to be 38% of the world's copper usage - not sure now). Chinese were buying up every pound of produced copper which drove up the prices to unsustainable levels. I was down at the Chilean mines when there was a worldwide copper shortage. Their government was so corrupt that they would not allow new water wells to be drilled for a new mine site without big bribes being paid. Mining companies started pumping water in from the coast near Antofagasta 100's of miles away. Had to build desalination plants near the oceans to supply the water. All added cost to the copper. All due to politicians getting in the way (and corruption). So does the world rely on Chile to supply its copper needs or do new places where there is copper need to be found? It is a trade off I realize. Oh, many of these Chilean copper mines were well run with good records. The leach piles could be messy but if built properly, worked well and did not pollute. They are going to be there for all of eternity no doubt and IMO rather ugly. They are a pretty color of turquoise though.
So, where do you draw the line? The proposed, and approved mines are outside the BWC. So how far away from the BWC do you limit any mining activity?
Another example. While the SEMOLMD (Southeast Missouri Led Mining District) has had many problems (waste, tailing ponds, etc...), at one time it was the largest lead producer in the world. The methodology of getting "the lead out" of the rock has changed over the years with the most recent being chemical flotation. The mined material would get crushed at the mine site (some of it underground and a sight to be seen) and then through several processes where the last step would float the lead in a chemical sludge. The sludge was scraped of and then loaded into trucks to be trucked over 100 miles away to the Herculaneum smelter. Smelting of lead is not exactly a clean process but Doe Run (lead mining company that owned the smelter) had spent millions of dollars to continually upgrade the smelter to meet ever demanding regulations. At the same time, they were investing millions of dollars in a totally new process to refine the lead that utilized electro winning processes instead of heat (cleaner process). It was an expensive process but very promising. Doe Run discontinued the research due to expense and from environmentalists who wouldn't allow it as they only saw it as bad because it was still lead. We lose.
Doe Run was forced to shut down it's smelting operations when it could no longer economically smelt lead. It was the last primary smelter in the US. The lead concentrate from the Missouri mines is now trucked to a port, loaded onto ships and shipped to China which smelts the lead we consume. While many applications can use recycled lead, many cannot. We now rely on China to provide us our primary lead. Wouldn't be hard for China to shut down its shipments of lead to the US as it has done to several vital raw materials already. So we are at the whim of the Chinese for a vital raw material - again. I can foresee in the near term the environmentalists going after secondary lead recyclers as the process to recover lead is not exactly pretty and clean either. Once the secondary lead producers are shut down, the US will no longer be able to supply it's needs.
Anyway, a long ramble. Please realize I am not saying that mining near the BWC is a good thing, I'm just trying to point out that we can't have it both ways. If we want to continue to live the way we do, we can't rely on unstable parts of the world to become the only suppliers of these vital raw materials and finished products. We can't be completely "green" and be safe and secure at the same time.
Off the soapbox.
Mark
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