Ascot Resources operations manager Rick Kasum’s disbelief that anyone could care about his Canadian company’s proposed copper mine adjacent to the Mount St. Helens National Monument demonstrates ignorance about the scenic and recreation values of the Mount Margaret backcountry and the Green River valley. (April 25 story “Group critical of proposed mine near Mount St. Helens.”)
It is not a “devastated area” or “an industrially zoned area,” as he argues. Instead, there are hiking and horse trails, an equestrian campground, lakes, forests, waterfalls, trout in the river, and elk herds on a landscape at the fringe of the Mount St. Helens blast zone.
He appears to think we should embrace his proposed mine with its associated noise, dust, contamination of soil and groundwater, and threats to the drinking water supply of downstream communities from acidic mine drainage and leaching of metallic contaminants into the Green River. For every ton of copper produced, an ore mill would generate 99 tons of rock waste tailings that would need to be dumped nearby. Yet Kasum said, “Our impact is zero.” He must have meant Ascot’s economic impact on local communities; so far, all the drill rigs and workers have been brought down from Canada.
American mining laws need reform now.
Susan Saul
Vancouver
