Shameful Behaviour

The Guardian, Rob Gowland
Published November 5, 2008

Mining companies, by definition, are not concerned with maintaining the natural environment, but instead with digging it up, despoiling it and making lotsa money from what they find buried in it. As I remarked a week or two back, they seem totally unconcerned about whether life on Earth actually disappears within a generation or so. Along with oil companies — another form of mining when you think about it — they are among the most rapacious of capitalist entities. But that does not mean that they are unaware of changing attitudes and new potentialities. Scientists and environmentalists condemn the burning of fossil fuels? The mining industry will spend a packet to convince the public that "the answer is clean coal" or that "coal is good". But they also have a Plan B: in the event that coal mining is phased out; phase in nuclear power instead, with accompanying uranium mining. Johnny Howard promoted this ploy, remember? Coal or uranium, the mining giants are set to make money, and that’s all that really matters, isn’t it? In the US, the mining companies — who naturally have the full support of the Bush White House — are positioning themselves for the possible future demise of coal. In just the last five years, speculators and mining interests have filed a staggering 8,568 mining claims in an area of approximately 1 million hectares adjacent to Grand Canyon National Park. The reason for this latest "gold rush" is escalating uranium prices. They are going up in anticipation of new nuclear power plants being built and needing fuel. Only a few months ago, an alarmed US Congress passed a resolution declaring the area near the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River that runs through it to be "off limits" to mining activity. However, despite opposition from environmental experts of every hue, the White House has allowed Arizona-based Neutron Energy to stake 20 new mining claims in the supposedly protected area. In fact the Bush White House has arrogantly thumbed its nose at the democratic process, declaring that it will "defy" the Congressional resolution. The White House has been condemned for its stance by groups as diverse as the Grand Canyon Trust, the Centre for Biological Diversity and the venerable wilderness group the Sierra Club. They are joined by the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands, Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, the Southern Nevada Water Authority and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. Dusty Horwitt, Senior Analyst for Public Lands at the Environmental Working Group (EWG), said the Bush administration’s action "is the environmental equivalent of a sub-prime mortgage on the nation’s most iconic natural treasure." It was the EWG in August 2007 that alerted the public and Congress to the rush for mining rights around the Grand Canyon. "Mining companies get in cheap today," said Horwitt, "and the public pays tomorrow for what is certain to be a major environmental disaster."