EarthWINS Daily

Back to Archives

Current Issue

Guestbook

Contact EarthWINS

Links

EarthWINS Daily #4.4
2/10/99

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 20:40:43 -0800 (PST)
From: Alice McCombs <amccombs@igc.apc.org>

1. INDONESIA: Walhi's statement on Freeport
2. WASHINGTON: Mining Ban Pits Environmentalists
3. RUSSIA: Coal Miners Push For State Aid
4. WISCONSIN: Some things you can do to help Nashville Wisconsin
a. Info for requesting link to Nashville Site
b. Help Nashville, WI with Affiliate Programs
5. WISCONSIN New Bill Seeks End to Political Control of DNR
6. WISCONSIN: Representative: Interpretation Of Law Too Easy On Mining Company

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

1. INDONESIA: Walhi's statement on Freeport

plovers reg.westpapua 3:35 AM Feb 10, 1999
(at gn.apc.org)

PUSH FREEPORT TO GIVE MORE TO INDONESIA
Source: Kompas 8th February - translated from Bahasa Indonesia

The Indonesian Environmental NGO WALHI is pressing the government to
renegotiate the division of profits between the Indonesian state and PT
Freeport Indonesia Company. The government should receive 15% of the
profits instead of the 1-3.5% it currently receives.
In a press conference in Jakarta on Saturday 6th February, WALHI's mining
and Energy co-ordinator, Anung, stressed that the government must also pay
attention to the balance between economic priorities and the long-term
ecological considerations.

WALHI stated that Freeport's operations produced tailings containing the
toxic heavy metals cadmium and copper, in contravention to government
regulations on toxic waste (No19/1994).

Last January, James Moffat - CEO of Freeport McMoran which controls
Freeport Indonesia - met President Habibie who later agreed to an increase
in production capacity to 300,000 tonnes per day. WALHI are demanding that
the President should not negotiate any new agreements with Freeport since
the extension of the company's mining concession was not legitimate.

WALHI also said the President should abandon collusion between the state
and businesses, since the government should now be representing the
interests of its people. It should negotiate from the people's perspective.

"James Moffat's visit to President Habibie in January demonstrated the same
old collusive relationship between the state and capital - completely
sidelining the interests of the majority of the population and ignoring the
way we were heading towards a local, national and even international
crisis" said Anung.

Liz Chidley (dtecampaign@gn.apc.org)

**************************************************
Paul Barber
TAPOL, the Indonesia Human Rights Campaign,
25 Plovers Way, Alton Hampshire GU34 2JJ
Tel/Fax: 1420 80153
Email: plovers@gn.apc.org
Internet: www.gn.apc.org/tapol
Defending victims of oppression in Indonesia,
East Timor, West Papua and Aceh, 1973-1998

25 Years...and still going strong!
**************************************************

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

2. WASHINGTON: Mining Ban Pits Environmentalists

sawtooth talk.environment 11:07 PM Feb 5, 1999
(at wilderness.net) (From News system)

The Battle Over the West

By Brad Knickerbocker
The Christian Science Monitor

O L Y M P I A, Wash., Feb. 5 The Clinton administration has taken a
major step toward dismantling a law that ó for better or for worse has
tied the "new" American West of environmentalism and cybercommuting to the
old West of prospectors and pick axes.

Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck announced this week that 429,000
acres along Montanaís Rocky Mountain Front ó an area of rich wildlife
habitat ó would be off limits to hardrock mining. The move is aimed squarely
at the General Mining Law of 1872, an act signed by President Ulysses Grant
that was designed to populate the interior West by luring white settlers
with the promise of mineral riches.

For years, reformers have tried to amend the law, which critics claim
has cost the United States Treasury billions of dollars while leaving behind
a legacy of environmental degradation. But so far, Congress (especially the
Senate, which is proportionately dominated by conservative Westerners) has
failed to do so.

[...]

Constant Attackí on Mining Industry

For the past 10 years we've been under constant attack,î says Jill Andrews,
executive director of the Montana Mining Association. "When mining, oil and
gas, and timber were allowed, we were near the top in per capita income. Now
we're 51st ó even lower than the District of Columbia."

Four years ago, some $27 million a year was spent on hardrock mineral
exploration in Montana, almost all of it going into the local economy.
Today, says Ms. Andrews, the figure is down to about $400,000.

"We have just been devastated," says Andrews, whose trade organization
has about 450 members, most of them small miners and suppliers.

These days, however, itís not the promise of gold or platinum but the
see-forever views and relative quietude that attract the new pioneers, many
of them from back East or urban California.

This change in the demographic balance is one reason Montanans last
November voted to ban ìheap-leachî mining, a process in which a cyanide
solution is sprayed over large piles of ore to extract microscopic bits of
gold.

[...]

Unreclaimed Mines Left Polluted

The Mineral Policy Center reports that hardrock mining across the West has
resulted in more than 557,000 abandoned mines left unreclaimed. Among these
are 61 mines so polluted that they are on the Superfund National Priorities
List.

"The mining law is a relic of a bygone era," says Stephen DíEsposito,
president of the Mineral Policy Center, a nonprofit research and advocacy
organization in Washington. "Since passage of the mining law, the federal
government has given away more than $231 billion in publicly owned
minerals."

"When these policies were originally enacted, they may have been called
progress," Jill Lancelot, legislative director of the budget watchdog group
Taxpayers for Common Sense, told a Senate hearing last year. "However, over
a century later we call it corporate welfare."

Slowly, Dombeck Makes Moves

Forest Service Chief Dombeck's action this week is the latest in a series of
steps he's taken to reduce the impact of logging and mining on federal land,
including a suspension of new road building in national forests.

Speaking of the General Mining Law of 1872 this week, he said, "Many
areas are simply not appropriate for certain activities, such as hardrock
mining."

"We must protect the last best places and restore the rest," said Dr.
Dombeck, a fisheries biologist.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the nationís other big landlord,
also is reviewing its mining regulations with an eye to more environmental
protection.

This, too, is sure to heighten the political debate over what some
critics call the Clinton administration's "war on the West."

[...]

"The mining law is a relic of a bygone era. Since passage of the mining law,
the federal government has given away more than $231 billion in publicly
owned minerals."
Stephen DíEsposito, Mineral Policy Center

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/miningban990205.html

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

3. RUSSIA: Coal Miners Push For State Aid

Topic 102 IPS: ECONOMY-RUSSIA: Coal Miners Pu
newsdesk Political Change in Eastern Europe 3:09 PM Feb 6, 1999

*** 03-Feb-99 ***

By Sergei Blagov

MOSCOW, Feb 3 (IPS) - Rising unrest in Russia's ailing coal
industry has put the government between the rock and a hard place.
The industry desperately needs state funding to survive but the
coffers are bare.

The government, with an eye toward Romania where 200,000 angry
miners marched on Bucharest last month before being stopped by
riot police and army units, has promised to boost subsidies to the
coal industry to about 520 million dollars.

Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov announced plans to restore aid
only after Ivan Mocknachuk, the leader of miners' union exploded
at a miners' congress in Moscow earlier this week. "No money? You
are lying." he shouted.

The coal industry has struggled to survive since the fall of the
Soviet Union in 1991. With government subsidies being slashed
eight-fold since 1993, an increasing number of mines cannot make
ends meet.

Only 50 out of the 126 coal companies in Russia manage to make a
marginal profit, while the rest hemorrhage red ink, according to
government statistics. The companies operate some 200 mines which
produced roughly 240 million tons of coal last year but, of this
total, the least efficient 100 pits produced only 30 million tons.

The industry's problems are compounded by the regular occurrence
of deadly accidents - due to obsolete equipment and declining
safety standards.

Aman Tuleyev, governor of Kemerovo - Russia's major coal
producing area in Siberia, some 4,000 kilometers east of Moscow -
declared that ''We need to raise miners' wages up to at least 250
dollars.'' At present the average miner's pay is 150 dollars a
month.

On the other hand, miners got too many privileges in early 1990s,
Tuleyev said. ''They work 30 hours a week and 180 days a year, and
the government simply cannot pay the bill to subsidize the
industry.''

During the Soviet era, the government kept old mines operating
long after their ability to make a profit was exhausted. Since
1991 the Russian government also has been reluctant to close spent
pits to avoid social unrest. The main union, the Russian Union of
Coal Industry Workers (Rosugleprof), has 780,000 members and is
one of the best organized - and the most militant - of Russia's
unions.

The government plans to aid the coal sector centre on loans from
the World Bank and Japan's Eximbank amounting to some 800 million
dollars, Sergei Generalov, Minister of Fuel and Energy, told the
miners' congress this week.

The World Bank already has extended several loans for Russia's
coal sector meant to be used to close close down unprofitable
mines and provide re-training in other work areas for the laid-off
miners. Since June 1992, the World Bank has committed a total of
about 7.5 billion dollars to Russia, which is already the bank's
third-biggest borrower.

The latest loans mentioned by Generalov, however, are still in
limbo as the World Bank is yet to make a decision.

''We need social partnership,'' said Primakov promising to do his
best to tackle the crisis of non-payment of miners' wages. He
added that the total of 552 criminal proceedings - including 145
in Kemerovo region alone - against managers implicated in
embezzlement or fraudulent mediating firms. In many cases coal
executives reportedly set up obscure colnsulting firms in the name
of their relatives to siphon money out of coal companies, causing
wage delays.

Primakov conceded that the miners were owed more than 200 million
dollars back pay. Delays in paying the miners average five months
and reach even 10 and 12 months at some pits.

The unpaid miners struggle to survive by relying on part-time
jobs, raising vegetables in suburban garden plots, and borrowing
from relatives. Most mines are in the North of the country and
lack of money and failure to pay bills could imply power cuts -
with freezing temperatures plummeting to minus 40-50 in early
February

Despite the government efforts to help, the miners appeared to be
losing patience. In the immediate aftermath of the Congress,
miners at the Berezovskaya pit in the Kemerovo region staged a
''sit-in'' at the mine to protest against 6-month wage delay.

Miners from Southern Russia, along with their brethren in the
North, could act as did the miners in Romania, warned Vladimir
Kotelnikov, the Russian miners' regional union leader.

The Romanians ended their march in January declaring victory
after winning concessions on pay and pit closures from Prime
Minister Radu Vasile. The agreement has not yet been made public
and the action by the miners cost the country tens of million of
dollars, according to Romanian officials.

Some analysts argue that the Russian miners, whose strikes were
instrumental in the collapse of the last Soviet government and
brought President Boris Yeltsin to power, now lack the resolve to
stage any decisive action.

Still, miners picketed the White House, the Russian government
building in Moscow, last summer for nearly four months in a
protest over pay arrears. The protesters gathered daily near the
government building to yell insults at Yeltsin.

At the time Russian trade unions threatened to launch an
indefinite nation-wide strike in protest at unpaid wages and a
government austerity program. But the "all-Russia day of protest"
on October 7 resulted only in a series of peaceful marches. Both
incidents failed to bring any concrete results - and now observers
believed the Romanian scenario wass unlikely to be repeated in
Russia - partly because Russia's coal regions were too far away
from Moscow to be reached by marchers.

Nonetheless, the coal industry today remained a cornerstone of
Russia's energy sector. Roughly one half of Russia's electricity
is produced in coal-fired power stations. Total coal reserves are
estimated at three trillion tones with some four fifths of coal
deposits located in Siberia.

In the long term, the government faced the issue that most of the
loss-making mines were in isolated towns where no other employment
was available. Miners faced the prospect of having to move to
other regions, but the current economic turmoil throughout Russia
made alternative employment difficult.

The World Bank has estimated that roughly half of Russia's miners
would be forced to leave the industry over the next decade which
would have unpredictable repercussions against the background of
the current crisis. (END/IPS/sb/mk/99)

Origin: ROMAWAS/ECONOMY-RUSSIA/
----

[c] 1999, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS)
All rights reserved

May not be reproduced, reprinted or posted to any system or
service outside of the APC networks, without specific
permission from IPS. This limitation includes distribution
via Usenet News, bulletin board systems, mailing lists,
print media and broadcast. For information about cross-
posting, send a message to <wdesk@ips.org>. For
information about print or broadcast reproduction please
contact the IPS coordinator at <online@ips.org>.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

4. WISCONSIN: Some things you can do to help Nashville Wisconsin

a. Info for requesting link to Nashville Site

From: tarawins@ezwebtech.com
February 9, 1999

Hi Folks,
One thing that will really help raise funds for the Town of Nashville is
getting links to their web site posted on other sites around the Web. So
included below is all the info you might need to "Add a URL" or "Suggest a
Link" when you're out surfing.
Thanks in advance!
Alice McCombs

Web site title
Nashville Wisconsin Under Siege!

Web site URL
http://www.nashvillewiundersiege.com/index.html

Email address
help@nashvillewiundersiege.com

Short Description
Raise funds for Town of Nashville, WI Legal Defense Fund

Longer Description
Raise funds for Town of Nashville, WI Legal Defense Fund to protect its
citizens from proposed Rio Algom Nicolet Minerals Company sulfide mine

Keywords
Nashville, Wisconsin, environment, mining, Mole Lake, Crandon, Rio Algom,
Nicolet Minerals Company, Town of Nashville, Mole Lake Sokoagon
Chippewa,indian, Native American, reservation, sulfide mining, Exxon,
Governor Thompson, DNR, fundraiser, raise funds, contribution,
tax-deductible, democracy

Address Info
Town of Nashville Legal Defense Fund
c/o Chuck Sleeter / Joanne Tacopina
P.O. Box 106
Pickerel, WI 54465
Ph: 715-484-4501 (H) 715-478-2524 (W)

FAX: 715-478-2527

Web site design
Earthwins
http://www.earthwins.com/
Shawano, WI 54166

ISP
EZWebtech
http://www.ezwebtech.com/
Shawano, WI 54166

------------------------------------------------

b. Help Nashville, WI with Affiliate Programs

From: tarawins@ezwebtech.com
February 10, 1999

Hi Folks,

Here's another way to help send contributions to the Town of Nashville
Legal Defense Fund (see http://www.nashvillewiundersiege.com/index.html)

Do you have a web site? You can become an affiliate of companies like
Amazon.com. As an affiliate, you add vendor links to your site; when
visitors to your site purchase something from those vendors links you get
referral fees (from 3% to 15%). The vendors take care of the orders. All
you do is register, put a graphic/link on your sites. You can instruct the
vendors to send any referral fees to the Town of Nashville Legal Defense
Fund.

There are hundreds of affiliate programs available. To learn more about
affiliate programs, visit Refer-It at
http://www.refer-it.com/

Save gas, shop online & help Nashville.

If you don't want to mess with being an affiliate, then check out the
Nashville site where you can purchase books from Amazon.com, software from
beyond.com and other neat stuff:
http://www.nashvillewiundersiege.com/shoponline.html
EarthWINS is donating all referral fees from vendors on the Nashville site
to the Town of Nashville Legal Defense Fund.

We might not have a lot of money to donate, but we all buy things. This way
we can buy things we would buy anyhow & help Nashville at the same time.

Alice McCombs

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

5. WISCONSIN New Bill Seeks End to Political Control of DNR

1/99
From: http://www.wsn.org/issues/newDNRbill.html

The following news release comes from Representative Spencer Black's office
and addresses a major concern of the Wisconsin Stewardship Network - the
loss of DNR Independence. Representative Black can be reached at
608-266-7521 for more specifics.

Representative Spencer Black has introduced legislation to end the
political control of the Department of Natural Resources. Black's
legislation will restore the independence of the DNR. Prior to 1995, the
DNR Secretary was appointed by a 7-member citizen board. In 1995, however,
the Legislature and Governor
eliminated the non-partisan status of the DNR. Now, the DNR Secretary is a
political appointee who is hired and fired by the Governor.

Black's bill would return the DNR to its non-partisan, politically
independent status. "Wisconsin's system of a politically independent
conservation agency made
our state a national leader in protecting our environment. That's because
decisions about our outdoors were based on science, not politics. The
recent change to a politically controlled DNR undermines our proud
tradition of stewardship of our environment. The newly established
political control of the DNR means that decisions about our environment are
now subject to political interference," said Representative Black.

Black announced the introduction of the legislation at a press conference
held at the State Capitol on January 21. Black pointed out that the law
that had kept
direct political influence out of conservation decisions dates all the way
back to 1927 when the great Wisconsin conservationist Aldo Leopold led the
fight to end
political control and cronyism in our conservation agency.

Black was joined at the press conference by two daughters of Aldo Leopold -
Nina Leopold Bradley and Estrella Leopold. Also at the press conference
was
Senator Kevin Shibilski the lead sponsor of the legislation in the Senate
as well as conservation leaders. The bill is sponsored by a bi-partisan
group of 34
legislators.

Black said that while the greatest impact of political control is likely to
be in the long term, the impact of political control of the DNR has already
been seen.
Black said the DNR has increasingly gone from the role of independent
regulator of the mining industry to a booster of mining. Black pointed to
the DNR's role
in lobbying against the mining moratorium bill, the refusal of the agency
to properly implement the moratorium law and the recent decision by the
agency to drop minimum payments from mining companies to an environmental
clean-up fund.

Black also pointed to a recent decision by the DNR to give the cranberry
industry a special exemption from wetlands protection. Since 1991, the
cranberry
industry has contributed more than $84,000 to Governor Thompson's campaign.

Black also noted that the DNR has become a mouthpiece for the Governor's
proposals instead of an independent and respected evaluator of legislation
that effects
our outdoors. For example, the DNR backed Governor Thompson's raid on the
Recycling Fund in the last budget, something that it always opposed prior
to
becoming a politically controlled agency.

The DNR has also been used for partisan political fundraising since it came
under political control. Black pointed to a fundraiser for Republican
legislative
candidates hosted by the DNR Secretary. The Secretary used his official
title and agency name to solicit lobbyists for campaign contributions.
"Having the
regulator of the mining and landfill industries soliciting campaign
contributions from mining and landfill lobbyists compromises enforcement of
our anti-pollution
laws," Black noted.

"It is time that we return to the Aldo Leopold system of conservation that
served our state so well for almost 70 years. Our environment is too
important to our
state and our future to allow political control over conservation to
continue," Black concluded. "Decisions about our outdoors should be based
on what is best
for our environment - not on what is best for politicians."

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

6. WISCONSIN: Representative: Interpretation Of Law Too Easy On Mining Company

From: http://www.wsn.org/mining/mininglaw.html

The following story appeared in the 1/25/99 edition of the Milwaukee
Journal-Sentinel and is reprinted with their permission

Representative: Interpretation Of Law Too Easy On Mining Company

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- The state's current interpretation of a law requiring
that companies provide an example of a pollution-free mine elsewhere is
making it easier for one company to build a mine near Crandon, a legislator
said Monday.

Nicolet Minerals Co., a subsidiary of Rio Algom Ltd. of Toronto, is seeking
state and federal permits to remove 55 million tons of copper and zinc ore
from a deposit about five miles southwest of Crandon near the headwaters of
the Wolf River.

The so-called "mining moratorium" law requires companies interested in
building a mine in Wisconsin to show a similar mine has operated in North
America for at least 10 years without polluting rivers, lakes, streams or
ground water. The company also must show that such a mine has been closed
for a decade with no signs of pollution.

At issue is whether the mining company can submit more than one mine to
meet both tests.

In 1997, the DNR indicated one mine must meet both requirements.

"For a mine to qualify as an example of sound technology, it must have been
operated a minimum of 10 years and closed another minimum of 10 years,"
Department of Natural Resources Secretary George Meyer said in an Oct. 3,
1997 letter to a state representative.

The DNR recently said the law clearly allows two mines to meet each leg of
the 10-year test.

"Clearly, the DNR has changed their position 180 degrees to accommodate the
mining company, to make it easier for the mining company to obtain their
permit," said state Rep. Spencer Black, a Madison Democrat who helped write
the mining law.

The DNR changed its interpretation of the provision after the law passed
and it was reviewed by agency lawyers and the attorney general's office,
Meyer said.

The attorneys advised that if the DNR determined the law to read that one
mine must satisfy both requirements, the mining company would have been
able to successfully sue the agency, Meyer said.

"We would not be able to sustain in court the interpretation that the law
requires one mine for both provisions," Meyer said Monday.

Nicolet submitted a list of three mines elsewhere that it claims have
operated with no environmental harm.

The McLaughlin Mine, a gold mine near San Francisco. Homestake Mining Co.
has owned and operated McLaughlin Mine since 1983 without pollution
resulting from acid rock drainage or the release of heavy metals, according
to Nicolet.

The Cullaton Lake Mine in Canada's Northwest Territories. The gold mine,
owned by Homestake, Canada, has been closed since 1985 without pollution
violations, the company said.

The Sacaton Mine near Casa Grande, Ariz., has been closed since 1984
without polluting the surrounding area, Nicolet said. ASARCO, of New York,
owned and operated the copper mine from 1972 until its closure, the company
said.

Black said the agency's interpretation could be a key factor in whether the
Crandon mine is permitted if the Arizona mine fails to meet other criteria
in the moratorium law. He noted there have already been concerns raised
about that mine's water regulation.

"What it means is that at a minimum, there are some very severe questions
about the Arizona mine," Black said. "Which means that the 10-year-10-year
standard may prove to be the key to whether a permit is granted or not."

The DNR's change in interpretation does not make it easier for Nicolet to
meet the law's requirements, Meyer said.

"It is still a difficult law to comply with," he said. "If the legislature
does not agree with the law then they need to go back and change it."

******************************************************************

Nashville Wisconsin Under Siege!

Please help the Town of Nashville Wisconsin defend itself from a
multinational sulfide mining company and the Wisconsin state government.
Tax-deductible contributions may be made to
Town of Nashville Legal Defense Fund
c/o Chuck Sleeter / Joanne Tacopina
P.O. Box 106
Pickerel, WI 54465

FAX: 715-478-2527
http://www.nashvillewiundersiege.com/index.html
Help@nashvillewiundersiege.com

Disclaimer

EarthWINS Daily is a project of EarthWINS.

** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, material in this issue of EarthWINS Daily is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. **

The articles in EarthWINS Daily are PHOTOCOPIES for personal informational purposes--please seek reprint permission directly from the source listed. You are encouraged to utilize this information for personal campaign use; including writing letters, organizing campaigns and forwarding. All efforts are made to provide accurate, timely pieces; though ultimate responsibility for verifying all information rests with the reader.

If you distribute information contained in EarthWINS Daily, please:

(1) Copy the information in its exact form,
(2) Cite the author, publisher, and date of the information.
(3) Include this subscription information for EarthWINS Daily -

To subscribe to EarthWINS Daily send an email to
EarthWINS-Daily-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Thank you!

Subscribe to EarthWINS_Daily EarthWINS
P O Box 573
Shawano, WI 54166
Ph: 715-524-5998
FAX (call first): 715-524-9958
EarthWINS-Daily@earthwins.com
www.earthwins.com
Please sign my guestbook