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Southeastern Minnesota asks state for frac sand help

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Minneapolis Star Tribune - By Tony Kennedy - Feb. 20 (News Report) - Local officials and citizens from southeastern Minnesota pleaded at the Capitol Tuesday for state help to halt the expansion of industrial frac sand mining until more is known about the industry’s effects on air, water and public health.

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Rift Widens Over Mining Uranium in Virginia

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Trip Gabriel - Jan. 20 (News Report) - Bills introduced to the General Assembly would lift a moratorium on uranium mining at a site in southern Virginia, but the issue has divided the region.

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Zonguldak Accident Draws Attention to Turkish Miners' Plight

Sat, 12 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Global Voices - By Baran Mavzer - Jan. 12 (Opinion) - Eight miners were killed due to a gas leak on January 7, 2013. Zonguldak, the main mining city of Turkey, hits the headlines once again with this fatal mine accident. Bloggers, across the political spectrum, were united in condemning the accident and the working conditions of miners in the country.

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Injection Wells

Sun, 09 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0700

ProPublica - By Abrahm Lustgarten - Sep. 09 (Investigative Report) - Lax oversight, uncertain science plague program under which industries dump trillions of gallons of waste underground.

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Mutated Trout Raise New Concerns Near Mine Sites

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 05:19:03 -0800

New York Times - By By LESLIE KAUFMAN - Feb. 23 (News Report) - Selenium, a metal byproduct of mining that is known to be toxic to wildlife, is under review by federal agencies who are re-evaluating safe levels in area creeks.

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U.S. District Attorney Goodwin: Alpha "not a life, it's not a being, it can't go to jail."

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Writing Corner - By Beth Wellington - Dec. 07 (Opinion) - Montcoal, WV. 3:27 PM on Monday, April 5, 2010. It was the worst U.S. coal-mining disaster in nearly 40 years. Twenty months ago, just across the river from Coal River Mountain on Cherry Pond Mountain near its mountaintop removal mine, Massey Energy's underground mine at Upper Big Branch exploded.

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Charles Scott Howard: The Miner Who Took On Big Coal

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Dave Jamieson - Sep. 14 (News Report) - On a July morning four years ago, Charles Scott Howard left his home in the mountains of Southeastern Kentucky and drove his pickup truck 150 miles to the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Lexington. A career coal miner, Howard was headed to the posh hotel to testify at a public hearing held by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), a regulatory arm of the U.S. Department of Labor.

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Stoking Fire: Mountaintop Coal Mining Leads to Birth Defects, Respiratory Illness and Other Health Problems | Truthout

Sun, 04 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

truth-out.org - By Eleanor J. Bader - Sep. 04 (Investigative Report) - As mountaintop removal [MTR] has horned-in on underground mining, the health maladies of residents of eastern Kentucky, southwest Virginia, eastern Tennessee, and southwest West Virginia—Appalachia—have begun to pile up.

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Los 33: Chilean miners face up to a strange new world

Sun, 17 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Angus Macqueen - Jul. 17 (News Report) - The rescue of 33 miners from Chile's San José mine after 69 days trapped underground was a triumph shared with the whole world. But the transition back to normality is proving difficult for both the men and their families 'They are not heroes. We are not heroes. We are all victims," murmurs Lilly Ramírez, the uncompromising partner of Mario Gómez. At 63, he was the oldest of "the 33" Chilean miners who were trapped half a mile under the Chilean desert on 5 August 2010, and whose rescue became a global event for a TV audience of an estimated 1 billion people. Ever since they emerged 69 days later on the night of 12/13 October, I have been working on two BBC documentaries: about what happened while the men were down the mine – and what has happened to them and their families since. Now, as the first anniversary approaches, it is the tenacity and the suffering of the women – the wives and partners – that emerges. They and their men were certainly victims but I am not sure Lilly is right: there ...

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Zimbabwe and its diamonds: Forever dirty

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Jul. 01 (News Analysis) - The Kimberley Process (KP) is in danger of collapse. Set up in 2003, the system is supposed to end the trade in “blood diamonds” which illicitly finance civil wars. But its Congolese chairman has unilaterally decided to let sales from Zimbabwe’s disputed Marange diamond fields resume. America, the European Union, Canada and Israel are hotly contesting the move. Rulings by the 49-member body, representing 75 diamond-producing and -trading countries, are supposed to be unanimous. Ever since diamonds were first discovered in a 60,000-hectare site in Marange in eastern Zimbabwe in 2006, reports of killings, torture, corruption, bribery, looting, smuggling and political skulduggery have been rife. The stakes are enormous. Tendai Biti, Zimbabwe’s finance minister, has described the field as “the biggest find of alluvial diamonds in the history of mankind”. Potential revenue has been estimated at $1 billion-2 billion a year. One mining expert involved in the area reckons it is “much, much more”. The IMF put Zimbabwe’s entire GDP last year at $7.5 billion.

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J.P. Morgan's hunt for Afghan gold

Thu, 12 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Fortune - By James Bandler - May. 12 (Special Report) - To Hannam, chairman of J.P. Morgan Capital Markets, Afghanistan represents a gigantic, untapped opportunity -- one of the last great natural-resource frontiers. Landlocked and pinioned by imperial invaders, Afghanistan has been cursed by its geography for thousands of years. Now, for the first time, Hannam believes, that geography could be an asset.

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Who wants to frack with SA?

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Tectonic - By Andreas Späth - Apr. 13 (Opinion) - Shell has faced the flack about proposals to mine for natural gas in the Karoo, but there are others to name and shame.

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Fatal Mine Blast Was Preventable, Report Says

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By John M. Broder - Jan. 20 (News) - In a preliminary report, officials from the Mine Safety and Health Administration said their investigation found that Massey Energy, operator of the Upper Big Branch mine, had repeatedly violated federal rules governing ventilation and control of coal dust to reduce the risk of explosion.

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In China, Illegal Rare Earth Mines Face Crackdown

Thu, 30 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Keith Bradsher - Dec. 30 (News) - Rogue operations in southern China produce an estimated half of the world’s supply of heavy rare earths, which are the most valuable kinds of rare earth metals. Heavy rare earths are increasingly vital to the global manufacture of a range of high-technology products — including iPhones, BlackBerrys, flat-panel televisions, lasers, hybrid cars and wind-power turbines, as well as a lot of military hardware.

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China's stranglehold on rare earth metals 'no threat to US security'

Sun, 31 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Edward Helmore - Oct. 31 (News Report) - Pentagon study set to allay fears that Beijing may reimpose freeze on metals vital to defence and technology.

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China denies any rare earth mineral export embargo

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Christian Science Monitor - By Peter Ford - Oct. 20 (News) - Recent interruptions in exports of rare earth minerals are due to a sharp cut in export quotas announced last July, argue China and rare earths analysts.

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Rescue May Redeem a Troubled Past for Chilean City

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Simon Romero - Oct. 15 (News) - In the predawn hours of Oct. 17, 1973 — 37 years before the mine rescue, almost to the day — military personnel murdered 16 men near here, including some who worked for Chile’s state mining company.

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Drill breaks through to trapped Chilean miners

Sat, 09 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Reuters - Oct. 09 (Breaking News) - Men expected to be pulled to suface starting Wednesday.

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Appalachia rises as mining razes mountains

Thu, 07 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Beth Wellington - Oct. 07 (Opinion) - It's time government woke up and stopped Big Coal trashing our land with its obscene mountaintop-removal mining I've always loved the song Peter and Gordon recorded in the 60s, " Land of Oden ", about a mountain 10,000 miles high and square: Once every million years A little bird comes winging, Sharpens his beak And quickly disappears. And when that mountain, it wears away Then, to eternity will be one single day. On 25 September in Washington, DC, I read to folks preparing to rally, march and sit in during the Appalachia Rising protest the following Monday. My poem " Looking Out Over An Abyss in Boone County " includes the line "mountains should abide." Big Coal has decided against almost-eternity for Central Appalachia. Ours is a war zone. To get at thin seams of coal, Massey and others detonate fertiliser and diesel fuel – the same materials used to build truck bombs. They destroy up to 1,000 vertical feet , dump the resulting rubble into valleys: hauling it away ...

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How toxic is Hungary's red sludge?

Thu, 07 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - By Olivia Lang - Oct. 07 (News Report) - The sludge, which contains a mix of metal oxides, is now making its way towards the Danube, Europe's second-longest river. But what exactly is the sludge, and how hazardous is it to humans? The sludge is a by-product from the early stage of aluminium production, which leaked from storage reservoirs. As part of the process, bauxite, the raw material, is taken out of the ground and washed with sodium hydroxide. This produces alumina, which is processed further, and waste, which is composed of solid impurities, heavy metals, and the chemicals used as processing agents.

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Chile president predicts rescue of miners by Oct. 15

Mon, 04 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - Oct. 04 (News) - Chile's president said Monday that his government is "very close" to pulling 33 trapped miners to safety and he hopes to be there in person to see the rescue before leaving on a trip to Europe.

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Diesel Dangers: Mining Companies Get First Look at Government Cancer Study

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Politics Daily - By Jim Morris, Chris Hamby - Sep. 27 (News Report) - A long-delayed government epidemiological study of possible ties between diesel exhaust and lung cancer in miners may finally be published this fall -- but only after a mining industry group, represented by the Washington lobbying powerhouse Patton Boggs, finishes a pre-publication review of the study's drafts.

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Summit starts on race for Arctic

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - Sep. 22 (News) - An international meeting to try to prevent the Arctic becoming the next battleground over mineral wealth is taking place in Moscow.

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Amid Tension, China Blocks Vital Exports to Japan

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Keith Bradsher - Sep. 22 (News) - Sharply raising the stakes in a dispute over Japan’s detention of a Chinese fishing trawler captain, the Chinese government has blocked exports to Japan of a crucial category of minerals used in products like hybrid cars, wind turbines and guided missiles.

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Justifying war as way to protect — or exploit — a nation's resources

Sat, 19 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Times - By David Sirota, - Jun. 19 (Opinion) - The real question about the Pentagon announcing vast mineral deposits in Afghanistan is this: What would prompt the government to portray well-known geology as some sort of blockbuster revelation?

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