12/15/15

Barrick blocking another Lead economic development initiative

Not long after Homestake Mining Company announced its intent to close operations in Lead, we were listening to this NPR story about an ice climbing park in Ouray, Colorado, a former mining town that has remade itself by farming ice. My daughters' mother turned to me and said: "Wow, they should do that in the Open Cut."

It was if she had spoken with the Voice of God.
Two brothers want to build what they say will be one of the world's tallest zip lines over an old gold mine pit in western South Dakota, but Lead city officials and the pit's owner have put the brakes on the project for now. Todd Duex, spokesman for Open Cut owner Barrick Mining, said the company has no desire to open itself up to potential liability. "Our attorneys feel we'd eventually be sued for an accident and with the litigious nature of our society, once they saw a gold company was involved, we'd certainly get sued," he said.
Read it here.

Note Lead Mayor Jerry Apa saying an eminent domain condemnation of the Open Cut is "morally and ethically wrong" even though the City of Missoula, Montana just successfully litigated the right to acquire Mountain Water beating the multinational Carlyle Group.
The city won the right to purchase Mountain Water through the process of eminent domain in June when Missoula County District Judge Karen Townsend ruled that public ownership was more necessary than private, for-profit ownership. [The Missoulian]
Meanwhile, Bozeman just hosted a world class ice climbing event drawing thousands of spectators.

Canadian miners Barrick just laid off 135 people in Montana. Barrick has raped much of the western United States leaving only piles of waste rock and acid mine drainage in their wake.


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