The Cyanide Test: Joan, Jared, or Will for/against Colorado mining

Is the Colorado Mining Association just being cautious or coy in not coming to the rescue of a politician who once stood up for the use of cyanide?   Here are some of my thoughts on the scrap to get to Congress between three Colorado politicians who are invoking, or failing to invoke, their past support for or hatred of the mining industry. 

It is hard to pity politicians. But sometimes you have to. There is always somebody ready to pounce on their digressions & transgressions.  They are expected to be paragons of constancy:  let them but once change their mind and they are guilty of vacillation, vacuity, and vagueness.  This in spite of the truth that only fools and dead men never change their minds.  To which we now should add US politicians–or are they simply fools by definition. 

Consider the case of Joan Fitz-Gerald, a politician in Colorado.  In January 2004 as the Senate Minority Leader, she wrote a letter to the Summit County Board of Commissioners, Breckenridge, Colorado: a hot-bed of rich activists.  In the letter she said [I edit for brevity.]:

I recently learned that anti-mining activists have focussed their efforts in Summit County to simply eliminate mining by banning the use of cyanide technologies.  These same anti-mining activists have had little to no success in securing support in Colorado for either a ballot initative …..or enacted of any legislation. 

However this has not stopped these activists from making misleading and exaggerated statements about Colrado’s gold mining industry…that uses certain designated chemicals, such as cyanide, in their processing.   I encourage you to not be misled by such statements and set such negative precedent in Summit County for banning lawfully regulated business practices.

Joan is now trying to get to Congress.  And she is being excoriated for this letter.  Here is what one blooger writes:

We knew that the mining industry was a enthusiastic supporter of Joan Fitz-Gerald before the CD-2 primary race started.  And throughout the race she hasn’t even bothered trying to distance herself from those ties.  As the race has worn on more of Joan’s mining support has come out, become more clear, stood up, been counted, shown its face, and given her opponents juicy ammo. 

An example of the use of this “juicy ammo” is a recent report:

The latest sniping between Polis and Fitz-Gerald comes during the same week that Polis’ campaign castigated Fitz-Gerald for writing a letter to Summit County commissioners four years ago outlining her opposition to a proposed ban on using cyanide to extract small amounts of gold…….The Fitz-Gerald campaign defended the letter, saying Fitz-Gerald felt that redrafted state mining laws sufficiently protected the environment and that a prohibition on cyanide mining was not necessary.

Her opponent, Jared Polis, called for a national ban on cyanide mining earlier this week, saying:

“When local citizens — disparagingly referred to as ‘anti-mining activists’ in Senator Fitz-Gerald’s letter — turn out in mass to support a ban on cyanide mining, environmental leaders need to support them,” Polis’ campaign wrote in a statement. “It is disturbing that my opponent — a self-proclaimed environmental leader — would go to such great lengths to write a letter like this on behalf of the mining industry.”

Joan has her supporters; although I find nothing from the mining industry in her support:  The Vail Daily (an even richer community) says–and again I edit for brevity:

Eagle County has been well represented in the U.S. House of Representatives by Mark Udall over the past 10 years. Now it’s time to pass that torch, and our pick is Joan Fitz-Gerald for the Democratic primary in the Second Congressional District….. Over the past year, our editorial board met several times with Fitz-Gerald and her rivals, Jared Polis and Will Shafroth and liked them all. Polis is bullish on education and is a strong personality who’d do well in the House……. But Fitz-Gerald comes out with the edge because she has these issues on her agenda as well - and she has a lot of experience behind her to help her hit the ground running…….An ardent environmentalist, Fitz-Gerald appears eager to join others in Congress to fight for our lands, a new energy policy based on renewable and sustainable practices and has also promised to continue the battle to address our state’s pine beetle problem.

But the mining industry is nowhere to be seen in her campaign.  I can find no endorsement of her and no statements by her on mining.  Seems to have dropped off the map.  Is the mining industry in Colorado being wise, cautious, or just plain timid in this race?  Let me know if you know. 

PS.  I link to Wikipedia instead of the candidates’ website.  I could not get any of their websites to load—whereas Wikipedia came up immediately.  Maybe these folk as not as technically savvy as they claim–or like McCain they do not even know about the web.

PPS: 14 August 2008.  I see in today’s Edmonton Journal that Jared Polis won this election.  We wish him luck and a clearer perspective on mining and cyanide as he moves to Congress.