Resource Extraction: "You Might Feel A Little Prick", Chromium in Coos Bay, LNG Everywhere...

evergreen_web_banner.png

KBOO is open to the public! To visit the station, contact your staff person or call 503-231-8032.


Produced by: 
KBOO
Program:: 
Air date: 
Mon, 11/08/2010 - 12:00am
Interviews with Olivia Schmidt, new twist in the LNG issue + interview with OR Coast Alliance Dir.

Back in the ‘80’s when nation ransacked nation in the co-terminal resource rush, an Australian-owned company named – Oh what the hell – Oregon Resources Corporation  first started poking around on the southern Oregon Coast.  For the same reason that the bear went over the mountain, “To see what he could see”.  And like the bear, “The only thing that he could see was the other side of the mountain…”  All together now…Fast forward and Furious, residents of Coos Bay are fighting the Aussie leviathan.   Would you like living next to an operation that could be running up to 24 hours a day, seven days a week, bringing bright lights, noise, dust and trucks rumbling down an otherwise placid, winding country road?    The company plans to mine 700,000 tons of ore per year, with as many as 67,000 truck trips, or one 24-ton truck every six to eight minutes. And then there’s the question of what the miners leave behind, opponents say, despite the company’s promise that trees will be replanted and streams returned to their original channels.  Right.  And what about the medical bills?  Chromium mining is notably a toxic undertaking. 

But even though Oregon Resource has its permits in hand and its processing plant well under way, many of the 200 neighbors who live near the mine sites are putting up a fight in the courts. They’ve filed a lawsuit against the agencies that approved the company’s permits, and they’ve got a slew of concerns about the project, from its potential for polluting the groundwater to noise and truck traffic.  www.oregoncoastalliance.org, like Mavis Staples, will take you there.

For all things anti-LNG, go to www.weagreenolng.org

Audio by Topic: