Donald Trump’s executive order to allow Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments to be mined by private interests was devastating. The transparency of big business corruption easily uncovered in emails from the administration’s Interior secretary Ryan Zinke. Environmentalists have raced to try and save what’s being destroyed by litigating; but damage has been and will be done—even if good ultimately wins. Glacier Lake Resources Inc., a Canadian mining company got their hands on approximately 200-acres of land, filled with some cobalt and nickel. In their press release, they crow about shedding the shackles of the national monument protections.
"The Colt Mesa acquisition broadens our focus on sedimentary hosted copper deposits, with a significant bonus of cobalt and nickel mineralization indicated. There is strong investor interest in the “Battery Metals” sector, including cobalt, nickel and copper. With this new interest coupled with the growth of the EV sector and strong demand for cobalt, the Colt Mesa project is a welcome addition to the Company’s ever growing portfolio of projects.” says Saf Dhillon, president and chief executive officer. “Surface exploration work will start this summer on the Colt Mesa property and drill permitting will be initiated shortly.”
I believe it was on the eighth day of creation that God and Buddha, Zeus and Vishnu sat down and wondered when humanity would be able to carve up their creation and, using artificial boundaries and for-profit organizations, add those slices to their “portfolios.” Glacier Lake Resources will now begin the literally archaic mining permit process that allows them to drill the land for about $15 a year. Not even enough to buy that “I came to Bears Ears National Monument and all I got was polluted drinking water and this T-shirt” T-shirt. That process is the Mining Act of 1872, that includes companies like Glacier Lake Resources not having to pay any royalties to the government, while profiting off of public land.
There are tons of reasons not to give away public land to private interest, scientific ones, environmental ones, moral ones. You can see some of the beauty of these monuments to nature in a community diarist’s post from last year, here.