Dear friend and supporter of Amigos Bravos,
In October this year the Santa Fe New Mexican reported that “for Amigos Bravos and other conservationists of Northern New Mexico, it’s a landmark victory – literally and figuratively”. The newspaper was referring to some remarkable breakthroughs we’ve had this year in our long campaign to hold Molycorp/Unocal (the Questa molybdenum mine) accountable, and to begin restoration of the beautiful but abused lands of the Red River and Río Grande gorge.
As much as anything, those successes have been due to your own consistent and enduring support. This letter is an appeal once more to your generosity, to help us finish a job begun together
The turnaround this year has indeed been remarkable. For over 25 years the Molycorp mine recklessly – and some would say arrogantly – polluted the Red and downstream Río Grande, as well as the Questa community’s groundwater, with its heavy metal effluents. Less than two years ago Molycorp was confidently contesting the state’s jurisdiction even to issue it with a pollution-control permit. But in April this year, it was suddenly faced with the toughest cleanup regime of all: Superfund. Amigos Bravos and our allies pushed hard for this designation, providing Governor Gary Johnson with the strong and diverse democratic base he needed to take such a tough decision.
Following draft Superfund-listing, the environmental dominoes have started to fall. Although the mine and its highly-paid consultants bitterly contested the state groundwater permit in mid-summer hearings – arguing in the continuation of a long pattern that Nature is responsible for a documented and relatively recent public health hazard – Molycorp/Unocal subsequently agreed to a $129 million bond to guarantee groundwater cleanup. Then came a promised $23 million bond to deal with the poisoned leachate from the mine’s tailings ponds. All this from a corporation which prior to the hearings would not countenance any payment beyond $5 million.
These breakthroughs have not been coincidental. They are the result, we can say with some confidence, of sustained pressure from Amigos Bravos, our allies and our supporters. Back in 1995 we decided there was only one way to take on such an inveterate polluter, evader of community ethics and manipulator of the regulations: to play them at their own game. We sued for Acid Mine Drainage under the citizens’ provision of the Clean Water Act. You, our members, came through with magnificent support for the effort in a 1997 appeal. Then, with the team of experts we would need for a long fight assembled, we fought Molycorp in and out of hearings in which they consistently denied their responsibilities and fudged their role in the degradation of the land. We even sued the EPA, who had sat on their hands for too long, and the action bore fruit this year with their issuing a surface-water pollution-control permit.
So why do we need your help again now? If the price of democracy is eternal vigilance, then the Molycorp mine demands a higher price than most. Despite an apparent philosophical about-face initiated by its new management, the facts remain that Molycorp and particularly Unocal are facing community actions for pollution all over the country, few of which they are likely to capitulate to; and that they have vast resources to bring to bear in these fights, topped up by the recent windfall for oil companies from escalating oil prices. A Molycorp spokesman recently implied that they may have spent an incredible $20 million on fighting their position, and – despite the positive signs – they are unlikely to give up now.
The signs now are that Molycorp may try to minimize its responsibilities by outspending its opponents – the state and the environmental community – in the final regulatory proceedings now underway. This is the ‘end-game’ to the process we initiated in 1995 – a series of intensive hearings and scientific and legal testimony which will last until January 2002, by which time the mine must have in place a final Closeout Plan under the New Mexico Mining Act. Molycorp/Unocal has a huge inbuilt advantage in this bureaucratic process, in terms of resources, even over the state. Yet critical issues of long-term pollution, human health and of finally ‘healing the land’ – restoring a self-sustaining ecosystem, as the Mining Act requires – will be decided in this relatively short time period.
For many years the tobacco industry exploited scientific uncertainties over the health impacts of smoking and controlled the flow of information, until sheer people power made them face the issue and admit past wrongs. In a world increasingly controlled by corporations which can increasingly ignore the will of local communities, the Questa molybdenum mine is a rare victory (though not yet a fully secured one). Please help us ensure that our lands – the beautiful places from which we derive so much sustenance, physical and spiritual – can in the future gain the same kind of respect from the corporate culture.
Your tax-deductible contribution of $1,000, $500, $250, $100, $50, $25, or whatever you can afford will help ensure that it is ethics and not money that has the final say. Please be assured that your hard-earned cash will be put to the best possible use, and will make a real contribution to achieving what we believe is an important environmental vision.
Sincerely,
Brian Shields
Executive Director
P.S. As a contributor, you receive our quarterly bulletin, our annual report, and invitations to any special events or meetings sponsored by Amigos Bravos. Also, we would like to meet you in person! We encourage you to visit our office, and get to know our staff. If you can’t come in, please consider writing us a note, or calling us and letting us know what you think of our work, how it can be improved, and what else needs to be done. We are here to serve you, our members, to make your voice heard, to make your concerns known. Please help to underwrite this crucial work by sending in your tax-deductible check today.
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