In my Minerals and World Affairs class we went over the ridiculous, antiquated, destructive basics of the U.S. Mining law of 1872. It is designed to take public lands and put them in private hands basically for free. That's a slight exaggeration - very slight.
Now, it looks like this law may be used to allow the destruction of one of the most productive salmon fisheries in the world, Bristol Bay Alaska. As if salmon didn't have enough problems.
I'm not going to write much more, as it's been a happy day and I want to keep it that way. There are links at the base of the article if you care to help do something about this potential disaster.
A side note: Our own congressman Blumenauer has, every single year he's been in office, tried to revoke this law. If only for this, the guy's got a place in my heart.
via: New West Columbia Gorge news blog
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
that is totally lame.
In so many ways, on so many levels, yes.
If you think it's that lame, ask the rest of the Oregon Congressional Delegation (or whomever your congressperson is) to cosponsor the mining reform bill as well. Its H.R. 2262. Give them all a call.
Most of the press I encountered about H.R. 2262 was negative until I hit this environmental website:
http://www.earthworksaction.org/publications.cfm?pubID=263
Nice thing about their critique is they actually use examples to back up their claims. All the naysaying I saw on government watch type sites just said it was bad without being specific. Saying it was pro big business and anti mom and pop business.
Very curious to see how this susses out.
Thanks for the tip anonymous!
Post a Comment