"The Molybdenum Corporation of America has not been a good neighbor"

Amigos Bravos continues to gather fascinating and illuminating information for our Oral History Project, part of our commitment to help sustain the cultural wisdom and traditions of New Mexico's rural communities. This year, we have focused our efforts on Questa residents' perceptions of the connection between clean water and healthy communities. For over 30 years the lower Red River watershed has suffered 239 documented tailings spills and ongoing seepage from the Molycorp mine. Thick clouds of toxic dust from the nearby tailings ponds blanket the village during the dry summer months.

Sandhya Ganapathy is our 1999 summer oral history intern. A graduate student in applied cultural anthropology at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Sandhya is particularly interested in learning more about community health and the many factors that affect it. She has done previous oral history research in the historic cigar making community in Tampa and health-related ethnographic research with clients of a substance abuse treatment center. Sandhya's research in Questa provides significant evidence to help hold Molycorp accountable for a broad range of impacts.

Amigos Bravos is also working with videographer Sylvia Atencio to incorporate these oral histories into a documentary about Molycorp's history and community perspectives toward the mine. In order to broaden our understanding of the complex and contentious issues, we have interviewed life-long Questa residents, former mine employees, activists, and authors.

Individual opinions about Molycorp vary greatly from one resident to another. Said one resident of this economically depressed village, in a fatalistic tone, "The mine or an oil well or I don't care what kind of industry you bring into a town, a community, a city, you're going to have the pollution. . . . If you want the jobs, your going to have to deal with it, and pray to God that nothing happens to you." Aware that multinational corporations are destroying traditional sustainable livelihoods around the world, other residents are angry at Molycorp for subjecting their community to toxic pollution: "They come in here and make big bucks. And then they leave and leave you with the degradation of land, air, water. And they're still creating problems. . . . The Molybdenum Corporation of America has not been a good neighbor."

Comprehensive studies to determine the mine's potential effects on Questa citizens have yet to be done, but many residents can tell you what pollution has meant to them. One resident recalls, "Can you imagine? Can you imagine canceling the state final championship baseball game because the dust was blowing in the field and they couldn't see? I mean that was . . . that was uncalled for. . . . There was a lot of kids getting sick. . . . That's why we have a new high school." Another resident said, "I imagine that by the time they do decide to prove it, by that time maybe half of those people are dead."

Molycorp's effects on the social health of the community are not as difficult to document: "It was really hard on people, you know. . . . People had big fights over Molycorp. And then people started healing when Molycorp closed. . . . People are trying to mend relationships and it's very slow healing. . . . It brought a lot of hate and animosity to town, real bad, but hopefully people will grow out of it and we'll become a community again."

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