A lot of attention is being paid lately by anti-mining people to the 1872 Mining Law, selling land for $5 an acre and collecting no royalties from mining companies. Never mind that the “greedy” mining companies making all that profit have paid billions of dollars in taxes, not to mention the jobs provided to millions of families over the years who also paid taxes on the wages they earned to make a living for their families.

Studies have shown that for every one person employed by a mining company, there are five more jobs created in the community in which they live – teachers, dry cleaners, retail clerks, insurance agents, etc. All of those people pay taxes too. Without this wealth brought into our nations coffers, this country would be a fragment of what it is today.

The other fact of life that anti-mining people fail to recognize is that every aspect of their lives is affected by mining. Everything we use, the home we live in, the car we drive, the roads we drive on, the money we spend, are all products that are either mined from the Earth or manufactured or milled by metal parts. Even agricultural products are fertilized by minerals and harvested by machinery made of metals.

In regard to environmental concerns, very strict modern regulations are in effect to force responsible use and reclamation of lands that have been mined.

Mining is an important industry to the economy, the progress and the stability of our country. Companies that are willing to put up the capital, do the exploration and development before they ever see the first day of production, much less a profit, should have incentives and be encouraged to develop more minerals for a growing world population, not penalized by new royalties and more fees.

DIANE BELING
Grand Junction

This entry was posted on Monday, July 21st, 2008 at 2:34 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.