Fact or Fear

Fact or Fiction?  You be the judge!

“State Statute 160.19(12) says that metallic mines are exempt from the state Groundwater Protection Law. Statute 291.35 says that metallic mining waste is not subject to the state’s stringent Hazardous Waste Management Law, even if it contains cyanide. Mine waste is instead regulated by DNR rules based on weaker standards for solid waste disposal. Unlike state statutes, the DNR has the power to grant variances and make changes to its own rules without legislative approval or public input.”

Source Our weakened Mining Laws

Fact

11. Chapter 160.19(12) exempts mining companies from the law controlling groundwater standards. Response: As far as this statement goes, it is true. The mining rules were passed by the legislature before the groundwater law was developed, thus they contain their own groundwater protection requirements. The two approaches use the same standards for protecting groundwater, and the standards are based on protecting health, safety and welfare of the general public. They differ slightly in how they are implemented, but the environmental protection objectives are the same. Section 182.075 contains the groundwater standards applicable to mining waste sites. Source http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/es/science/mining/infosheets/pub-con/pub-con.htm#statement11

291.35 says nothing about Metallic mining waste nor does it state it is not subject to the state stringent waste management law. 291.35 Rules on metallic mining wastes. States “the requirements of this chapter shall be subject to 289.05(2).” 289.05 can be found at http://www.legis.state.wi.us/statutes/99Stat0289.pdf. The employees of the Department of Natural Resources do not write the laws they enforce, our state legislature write the laws after hearings are held. To be politically correct the DNR has been delegated the authority for enforcing the laws of our state which fall under more then one statute. Just as the Law enforcement agencies enforce our civil and criminal laws, the DNR of Wisconsin monitors all commercial industry as well as the mining industry to make sure they follow the letter of the law when it comes to water and environmental issues. The laws of Wisconsin are just as stringent as any other state and perhaps stricter in some cases.
How is Metallic Mining Regulated in Wisconsin?
A number of state statutes and administrative rules specifically regulate metallic mining in this state. One very important part of the mining law is the provision that requires mining activities be regulated by other laws that more specifically address each particular activity. Consequently, any wastewater discharge from the Crandon mine would be regulated by the same laws that regulate wastewater discharges from all other municipal and industrial operations in the state. Air emissions from mines are regulated by the state’s air pollution control statute. Tailings disposal is regulated, not by the mining law, but by the statute that regulates all municipal and industrial solid waste disposal facilities. The same holds true for groundwater withdrawals, stream crossings, and many other activities related to a mining operation.Source: How is Metallic Mining Regulated in Wisconsin

Power lines & Cancer

“The noise and Electromagnetic Fields produced by 345,000 volt transmission lines could have effects on humans and wildlife!” “Minnesota Power and the Wisconsin Public Service Corp. are taking over our northern Wisconsin farm lands by utilizing emminent domain law…. The line has the potential to cause health effects in our livestock, cancer in our children, reproductive problems in women, etc” Source. Northwoods Group Against “Power Up Wisconsin”

Fact: “October 11, 1999 (ACS NewsToday) — People have worried for decades that electromagnetic radiation from power lines and other sources increases risk for cancer. Those concerns appeared to be justified by two scientific papers written by Robert P. Liburdy, PhD, and published in 1992. But an investigation by government scientists recently found Dr. Liburdy falsified data used in his research.” Source, American Cancer Society Read the whole article here. Data Falsified in Study Linking Power Lines to Cancer

Fact: (My Thanks to John E Moulder, PhD, Professor of Radiation Oncology, & The Medical College of Wisconsin for permission to use the following.)

New Updated information
Follow this link to the actual information Professor Moulder has, since it links to each of the questions with more specifics. URL: http://www.mcw.edu/gcrc/cop/powerlines-cancer-FAQ/toc.html Last-modified: 9-July-2003
Version: 7.9.5

The USENET version contains only the Table of Contents and a list of

recent revisions.

Preguntas y respuestas sobre líneas electricas y cancer esta disponible en
espanol:

http://www.mcw.edu/gcrc/cop/lineas-electricas-cancer-FAQ/toc.html

There are two related FAQs:
FAQs about Cell Phone Base Antennas and Human Health
http://www.mcw.edu/gcrc/cop/cell-phone-health-FAQ/toc.html
Static Electromagnetic Fields and Cancer FAQs
http://www.mcw.edu/gcrc/cop/static-fields-cancer-FAQ/toc.html
Note: A search of the American Medical Association redirects any search on the above subject to the same source above. The CDC (Center for Disease Control), has no reference to power lines and causes of cancer.

Some groups or individuals like to claim all mining is bad for the environment, and will try and scare
individuals with the use of word cyanide simply because they are against mining. What they fail to tell
you is that several million tons (very conservative estimate) of cyanide compounds are transported and
used yearly in the US, without any major incidents. In 1999 over 1.4 million tons alone were recycled by
those that use cyanide.

These same group of individuals like to make an issue out of one foreign country having a spill that involved
cyanide. What they fail to tell you is, Romania, had gained a reputation as a major industrial polluter in the
past. Romania also did not have the very same controls in place that the U.S. does. It is a known fact that
some foreign nations do not have, nor do they use the same safety standards that the United States has.
One good example would be the city of Chechnya in Russia. According to the History Channel at one time was considered to be the worst polluted city in the world, had a population of approximately 280,000, the average life of males was 41 years of age. 75% of infants born had birth defects. Chechnya was known to be a major manufacturing center for toxic chemicals. As you can see it is obvious there were no Clean air or water acts in the country or city. It should also be pointed out the spillage in Romania occurred after poor weather conditions complicated repairs to the protective wall of a dam. If the dam had been built to US standards, I doubt it would have required repairs. It is wrong to target one industry simply because they use one of the 650 toxic chemicals and substances listed by the EPA that are used for other processes.

Did you know that trucks in Mexico are not required to have working front Brakes? Mexico, Russia and Romania to mention a few countries are also known for substandard environmental requirements.

Mexico: Environment – current issues: natural fresh water resources scarce and polluted in north, inaccessible and poor quality in center and extreme southeast; raw sewage and industrial effluents polluting rivers in urban areas; deforestation; widespread erosion; desertification; serious air pollution in the national capital and urban centers along US-Mexico border. Russia: Environment – current issues: air pollution from heavy industry, emissions of coal-fired electric plants, and transportation in major cities; industrial, municipal, and agricultural pollution of inland waterways and sea coasts; deforestation; soil erosion; soil contamination from improper application of agricultural chemicals; scattered areas of sometimes intense radioactive contamination; ground water contamination from toxic waste Romania: Environment – current issues: soil erosion and degradation; water pollution; air pollution in south from industrial effluents; contamination of Danube delta wetlands Source for the above facts on Mexico, Russia and Romania. CIA Fact Book
The United States on the other hand has addressed these problems with the Clean Air Act and Clean water Act respectively and our industry has to meet their requirements or they will be shut down..

Do You know why the Clean Water Act was written? Back in the mid 50’s thru the late 60’s the Cuyahoga river in Ohio caught fire several times because of oil/fossil fuels on the surface of the water. (Ohio was one of the first states that drilled for oil.) Lake Erie and the Potomac river had also been polluted to a point where they were virtually dieing out. It was in 1972 the clean water act was written to correct the problems caused by lack of controls.

Today, the quality of our waters has improved dramatically as a result of a cooperative effort by federal, state, tribal and local governments to implement the pollution control programs established in 1972 by the Clean Water Act.

General Information about Cyanide.
Cyanide is usually found in compounds (substances formed by joining two or more chemicals). Cyanide
can interact with metals and other organic compounds (compounds that include carbon). Sodium cyanide
and potassium cyanide are examples of simple cyanide compounds. Cyanide can be produced by certain
bacteria, fungi, and algae, and is found in a number of foods and plants. In your body, cyanide can combine
with a chemical (hydroxocobalamin) to form vitamin B12 (cyanocobalamin). In certain plant foods,
including almonds, millet sprouts, lima beans, soy, spinach, bamboo shoots and cassava roots (potato-like
tubers of cassava plants grown in the tropics and known in the United States as tapioca), and in vitamin B12,
cyanide occurs as part of naturally occurring sugars or other complex organic compounds.

Cyanide salts have many legitimate uses, including insecticides, rodent killers (poisons), soil sterilization,
Coyote “gitter” traps, metallurgy (the melting and mixing of metals), electroplating, metal polish, removing
hair from hides, photography, production of organic chemicals, the extraction of gold from ore, chemical
synthesis, synthetic rubber, and the making of plastics, which are just a some of the many uses..