Fear Of Cyanide

In 1998, Montana became the first state to pass an initiative banning new cyanide-leach mines.

Open-pit gold mines proposed near the storied Blackfoot River and Yellowstone National Park helped rally the votes to pass the measure.

Laura Skaer, director of the Northwest Mining Association in Spokane, believes the fear-factor also helped pass the initiative.

Cyanide conjures up such scary images that the issue becomes an emotional one, she said. But events like the spill in Romania don’t occur in the United States and Canada, because of stringent regulatory oversight, she said.

At the proposed Crown Jewel Mine in Washington’s Okanogan County, a weak cyanide solution will be used to extract gold from crushed rock. Environmentalists’ concerns about the mine have focused more on the potential for heavy metals contamination than cyanide use.

Cyanide, though extremely toxic, is a relatively short-lived compound, said Aimee Boulanger of the Mineral Policy Center in Bozeman, Mont. Heavy metals contamination lingers for decades.

At the Crown Jewel Mine, the spent cyanide solution will undergo a chemical process that destroys most of it, said Jeff White, the mine’s environmental superintendent. The solution will be disposed of in a lined tailings facility, where sunlight and air break it down further.

The mine’s draft permit allows a certain level of cyanide in the tailings, but it’s under the levels harmful to wildlife, White said.

Cyanide use was only part of the issue in the Montana initiative, Boulanger said. The vote was also against the use of cyanide-leach technology, which allows companies to economically mine low-grade ore deposits, she said.

Ounces of gold and silver can be profitably recovered from tons of rock. “It levels landscapes,” Boulanger said.

But in light of the Romanian spill, Americans have to ask themselves some hard questions, Skaer said.

“We have opponents fighting every new mine being built. Are we driving the industry out of the country with the most stringent regulations, and best environmental track record?”