8.09.2007 7588.jpg

Originally uploaded by trenthead

This hot up in Washington re the Crandall Canyon Mine.  Here is the link to the just-issued report from the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General–Office of Audit.  The report is called “MSHA could not show it made the right decision in approving the roof control plan at Crandall Canyon Mine.”

I have not yet read the 80 pages, so no comment from me.  But the Google news and other blog items are begining to erupt, so take a look at your favorite, trusted resources and sites.  That from the Salt Lake Tribune is brief but informative.  The report from kutv.com is longer but not in depth.

The two blog postings I found simply trot out the ususal litany of incompetence we have all become too familiar with.  Nothing new or insightful there.  In fact it is probably impossible at this time to say anything new and insightful about this dreadful case. 

Personally I just recommend voting them all out of office and starting with a fresh slate.   For the rest, leave it to the lawyers, they may get to the guilty whom we cannot vote out.

“I was obliged to go to Cuba in early February to prepare an article about Sherritt International.” Thus begins the editorial in the February 2008 issue of the Canadian Mining Journal. 

Clearly Jane Werniuk had some misgivings.  She writes further: 

There were a few surprises.  A lack of advertising for anything at all except the Revolution and its Heroes and Martyrs.  The array of vehicles….horse and human-drawn and the hundreds of patient hitchhikers…including soldiers in uniform.

The customs agents in both Cuba and Canada took more than a casual interest in me as a journalist on a quick turn-around trip to Cuba, a country where the press has no freedom…we could report on something that would be embarrassing, I suppose. 

First a picture of a truck at the Cuba mine of Sherritt of Canada: 

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This weekend I went to a local production of Gilbert & Sullivan’s Patience.  That has nothing to do with mining you may say; but I reply that it was one of the first and most popular productions at the new Leadville opera house in the 1800s–the miners apparently flocked to see this strange picture of human silliness and love.  Thus in honor of the old miners’ apparent enjoyment of the different, I note these reports from today’s web:

 (But first a picture of Lady Jane bemoaning her advancing age–from Flickr)

Canadian miners take luxury train to Tibet to promote mining.  In a Globe and Mail report we read of plans to go to Tibet in the utmost luxury to develop new mines that will help the locals. It is not specified what help will be proffered to the locals or enjoyed by the locals as the Canadians arrive en masse to bring the benefits of the Toronto and Vancouver stock exchanges to monks who presumably would simply like to see the Chines gone, not the Canadians arrive.  Still a PDAC MOU might bring them invaluable benefits?

Bolivian miners worship the devil in the mine and God above-ground.  In a nicely written article we read of a church to the devil deep in a Bolivian salt mine.  You need to read this to believe it.  Here is part:

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