The Mining Industry Has a PR Problem

Yesterday, environmental advocates actually got something that was promised them during President Obama’s campaign:  The EPA halted approval of mountaintop coal mining permits. Now, these particular permits were just halted for review. The sites had been approved by the Army Corps of Engineers for so-called “valley fill” operations, but the EPA stated that ACE had not weighted environmental factors properly when considering the sites.

Mountaintop removal (aka MTR) is a controversial practice, and has garnered wide criticism, even outside of the environmental community. Local residents don’t care for it, and it seems that many are worried about future seepage into streams and groundwater. The main concern is over the sludge ponds that are formed as a result of washing the coal.

Back in October of 2000, there was a massive sludge pond spill in Martin County, Kentucky. It released 30 times as much waste as the entire Exxon-Valdez disaster into streams, and contaminated the drinking water of 27,000 residents. Massey Energy, the owner of the mine, was fined the maximum of $110,000. You heard me right, $110,000, a pittance in terms of punitive damages. The outrage was such that a documentary was made about the cleanup. Sludge took on the coal industry, and showed the state of the mining industry throughout Appalachia. Obviously, these people are not friends of mining, but it’s hard to argue with footage of a massive environmental incident.

Now, there are complaints from 7 African nations, including S. Africa, the Congo, and Senegal, stating that mining firms aren’t paying enough taxes. I had to go 3 paragraphs deep before they explained the fact that the deals weren’t properly negotiated, and that these countries don’t have the resources to audit mining firms. Basically, they lack manpower and are bad at negociating, so their countries get the short end of the stick.

The mines have long been accused of low pay, raping the land, stealing natural resources, and outright slavery of indigenous populations, by activists and natives alike. Films like Blood Diamond and even the Mask of Zorro have portrayed mining in an unfavorable light, and the mining companies just shrug and move on. After all, you can’t fight Hollywood with facts. Even though DeBeers claimed that conflict diamonds had been reduced from 4% down to less than >1%, Leonardo DiCaprio had a cause of the moment, and a movie to promote. That’s not to say that the issue was, or is not, serious. Steps had already been taken towards addressing the problem, before the movie was even captured on film. Yet, all of a sudden, people were wondering if the diamond on their finger was obtained at the cost of an enslaved amputee.

Now, in highlighting these various issues, you might think I am coming out as anti-mining. Nothing could be further from the truth. The problem is often with the PR campaign that is unleashed after the fact.  They haven’t yet learned that the best way to mitigate negative press is to have a consistent record of being proactive with regards to your critics.

Mountaintop removal accounts for less than 5% of total coal production in the US. Yet, this may be the issue that is used to make the case against coal in the public eye. Never mind the fact that 54% of our electrical power is generated by coal, and that the people protesting have successfully lobbied against building clean, nuclear power facilities. That will not matter. They will take a legitimate environmental concern, and formulate from that the ability to tax and regulate coal out of existence.

The fact that African nations haven’t taken existing tax revenues to hire appropriate auditing staff will not make a difference when the governments of these nations decide to seize properties that have been duly paid for. After all, if you are being cheated out of revenue, then you have the right to seize 100% of it. That’s mining, Chavez style.

If you’re DeBeers, well, you are up against the most credible, educated person that the motion picture industry has ever produced. After all, he was in Titanic.

So what am I suggesting they do, specifically:

1. In the case of coal companies, if you just have to do MTR, consult with the community at-large, and address the legitimate issues that they raise. Find, or pay for the research of a new technology that reduces or eliminates the need for sludge pools. Clean coal is only “clean” when it is burnt. The mining process is still the same as so-called “dirty” coal.
2. If you are a mining company in Africa, do yourself the service of paying for an independent mediator to form a contract between you and the tax levying body. In addition, make independent auditing data available to the tax levying body. Let the people of that nation see that you aren’t just there to profit, and leave them with a mess to clean up. The African continent has been exploited for hundreds of years. Accusations of continuing the practice won’t help your case when the peasants show up with the pitchforks, especially if their leader is a member of the Socialist party.
3. If you’re DeBeers, sponsor a film with a working title of  ”Actors are narcissistic morons who pretend to care, only because it is of benefit to their career:  Their attempts at a South African accent are passable at best”. Oh, by the way, Warner Brothers had promised to buy prosthetics for the amputees who acted in their film. They made them wait until the movie was released to get them, for maximum public relations efficacy. How’s that for exploitation?

Mining is under worldwide attack, simply because many governments feel that they need more: More control, more revenue, just more in general. Now, under the cover of environmental protection, global warming, and various UN treaties, they are attempting to tax, regulate, and take over private interests and profits.

To these people, it doesn’t matter that mining creates jobs and provides commodities with real value. In fact, that is the opposite of what national governments want. Their so-called “stimulus packages” are keeping our economies from recovering. They don’t want self-reliant people who are working hard, and that are holding something other than the worthless paper they are printing. They want people who are dependent on government, who can’t eat, breathe or take a bathroom break without asking a bureaucrat. That’s the end goal.

So what is my final message to the ? Simply this. Mining and related industries (such as the tire industry) are going to come under the crosshairs, just as soon as they’re done with the bankers. Governments are looking for a legitimately bad  incident, to turn the general public against us, on the grounds that we are killing the planet. So keep your noses clean, act in good faith, and when they show up with the pitchforks, have a 120 page list of the issues you’ve found and fixed already, rather than waiting for them to nail you to the wall. If you regulate yourself, there is no need for the government to do it, and you will have a far better chance of the peasants turning the pitchforks round on the bureaucrats.

I apologize for this small break from news on the tire industry…We’ll get back to that soon enough.

Until then, I’ll be…

Signing off…

Related posts:

1. Why Disasters Help The OTR Tire Industry
2. State of the Mining and Tire Industry: 2009
3. Who Wants To Sell Hugo Chavez Tires?
4. The EPA Needs To Take An Economics Class
5. Mining and Tire News Roundup – September 11th

Tagged as: cap and trade, clean coal, coal, epa, gold, Kentucky, martin county, massey energy, Mining, mountain top removal, mtr, public relations, sludge, sludge ponds