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Show Page 8 The Utah Independent March 21, 1974 j . 3 i m TOIL Continued frc wealth is well described in the following quote by Howard L. Edwards, Vice President and Secretary of Anaconda Company: An individual prospector or a small mining company made the initial discoveries at every mine presently operated by our company, with the single exception of our New Mexico uranium mine. Most of the feed for lead and zinc plants is furnished by small miners. Most of our national output of fluorspar, diatomaceous earth, antimony, and other many minerals is produced by small miners. Within the last 12 years, the initial discovery that led to the development of the world's largest deposit of beryllium ores at Topaz Mountain, Utah, was not made by the expertise of a major mining company but, rather, by a moonlighting school bus driver from Delta, Utah." Edwards also mentions: Charles Steen, a penniless who discovered, geologist mined Utah's and developed largest uranium mine; Vernon J. Pick, an electric motor repairman, who went out of business in Minnesota when his plant burned down and then made a discovery in Utah which he sold to a mining company for $9 Million; and Fred Schwartzwalder, a school janitor, who discovered one of the few vein ' deposits containing high-grade uranium ore near Golden, Colorado. The contributions prospectors and small operators are making to our Nation with regard to our industrial strength and, as a consequence of that industrial strength, to the standard of living we enjoy and our strategic security is a' record that starts before the middle of the last century. The story of discovery and mining in the West during the last 125 years and the wealth it has poured into the economy would take literally volumes to document. Estimates of the dollar value of contributions to the economy-made- . by mining in the West are substantially in excess of a trillion dollars. In considering the huge tangible contributions to our prospectors and made The Paper That Dares To Take A Stand 1 economy by mining companies, one automatically looks toward the future and the need for western mineral production. In a free enterprise system, where supply and demand exisit in an open market, the actual need of a commodity as it relates to its supply is reflected in its price. As of this writing (February 1974), the prices of vital metals produced by western mining are continuing to surge higher and higher, with gold up to $139.00 per oz silver at $4.68 per oz., lead at $. 1 9 per lb., zinc at $.3 1 per lb., and copper at $.68 per lb. These prices continue to rise, indicating the increasingly dire need this Nation has for those metals. In retrieving minerals from the ground, the price must be paid, sometimes in more ways than one. America, since it became a country, has had to pay the price ecologically. Extraction of our needs from the Earth leaves a void; this is physically axiomatic. We know to some extent what this extraction has done for us, but what has it done to us? Mining activity in the United States a rvn U S MINERAL IMPORTS IN 1972 rvn IMiniMi M livil MAJOR FOREIGN SOURCES PERCENTAGE IMPORTED MINERAL 100 0 25 50 75 I II I ! UK. USSR. SOUTH AFRICA. CANADA. JAPAN. NORWA PLATINUM GROUP METALS INDIA, BRAZIL. MALAGASY MICA USSR. SOUTH AFRICA. TURKEY CHROMIUM STRONTIUM MEXICO. SPAIN COBALT ZAIRE. BELGIUM. TANTALUM S - or.in ALUMINUM MANGANESE - FLUORINE TITANIUM E JAMAICA. ec BRAZIL. GABON. SOUTH AFRICA. ZAIRE (SB MEXICO. SPAIN. ITALY. SOUTH AFRICA CANADA, SOUTH AFRICA ggge MALAYSIA. SSSS cOlumbium Kmuuocr ANTIMONY IWViKg CANADA. . - USSR CANADA SS22SS555E MERCURY THAILAND SOUTH AFRICA. MEXICO, UK. BOLIVIA CANADA. SWITZERLAND. essmzs POTASSIUM NORWAY BRAZIL. NIGERIA. MALAGASY. BS5SS2SE GOLD BOLIVIA THAILAND. MEXICO. JAPAN. PERU. UK. KOREA BISMUTH . AUSTRAL IA SURINAM. CANADA. AUSTRALIA - TIN INLAND. CANADA. NORWAY LUXEMBOURG. NIGERIA. CANADA. ZAIRE QQC fruntoi ASBESTOS NICKEL t CANADA. MEXICO CANADA. MEXICO. PERU ZINC czsszmzz SILVER CANADA. CBZZSSSCEB BARIUM PERU MEXICO. HONDURAS. AUSTRALIA PERU. IRELAND. MEXICO. GREECE MEXICO. JAMAICA GYPSUM CANADA. SELENIUM CANADA. JAPAN. UK' PERU. CANADA. TELLURIUM V II 1 VANADIUM PETROLEUM MEXICO. (me n SOUTH AFRICA. CHILE. USSR Gmii . IRON CENTRAL B SOUTH AMERICA CANADA. VENEZUELA. . CAN ADA. MIDDLE EAST JAPAN. COMMON MARKET IEECI CANADA. AUSTRALIA. PERU. MEXICO LEAD MEXICO. AUSTRALIA. CADMIUM ' CANADA. COPPER TITANIUM (ilmfniTt) CANADA. wvnwv RARE EARTHS i PUMICE i BELGIUM. LUXEMBOURG. CANADA. PERU PERU. CHILE AUSTRALIA AUSTRALIA. MALAYSIA. INDIA Jwvca GREECE. ITALY SALT CAN ADA. MEXICO, BAHAMAS CEMENT CANADA. A MAGNESIUM BAHAMAS. NORWAY GREECE. IRELAND Inownciallicl NATURAL GAS CANADA RHENIUM WEST GERMANY. STONE' . ? CANADA. I. 75 I 100 I I 50 25 FRANCE . MEXICO. ITALY, PORTUGAL' 0 Source: Second Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior under the , Mining and Minerals Policy Act of 1970. (including Alaska and Hawaii) since 1776, including coal, oil, gas, stone, sand, gravel, cement rock, and metallic and non metallic ores, has disturbed less than 0.3 (three tenths of one percent) of all of our of the land area. One-thidisturbed area has been reclaimed by man or healed by nature. This, of course, leaves the currently disturbed areas at less than 0.2 of the land area of the United States. This is a small, sm&ll price indeed to pay for the highest standard of living in the world. We enjoy a standard of living that the human race has dreamed about and prayed foi; for centuries. In sharing our wealth, we have raised the standard of living to some extent of the entire world, and the free enterprise system has raised this wealth from out of the ground. ' As a result of the petroleum shortage, prices are accelerating at a rate which, if not slowed, w',! put the American citizen and businessman, to a great extent, off the road and, in many cases, out of business. We are now confronted with the very real possibility of starting to backslide in respect to our standard of living. Spiraling metal prices are an concerned some not so good. The majority in . Washington, however, had the . . for mining development has been such that exploration and mining could and did exist. This environment was based on the concept that as a Nation we needed industrial strength, material wealth, a higher standard the of living, ability to protect ourselves and to help others in need. These were the desires of those who created and passed the General Mining I.aws in 1872. self-sufficien- cy, important indicator of the , 1 developmental environment During the ensuing 100 years, the Laws of 1872 have had many some good and amendments development of some portions of our mining resources by the genius and energy produced in a free enterprise system. Although business in general and the free enterprise system philosophy is . continually under ' attack from the left, the situation of the mining business and the attack thereon is unique. This is in part due to the fact that very little is known about the mining business , by the general public. A. lack of knowledge on the part of the public system. is quite understandable, since the 'Quite recently, there has been mining business, as vitally legislation such as S.2542 and important to the Nation as it is, S.92 , which, if passed, would have of the U.S. employs less than ultimately unquestionably put free work force. out of business in Almost everyone realizes that we enterprise mining the United States. This is have in our national government considered by some as a well meaning people who feel that prerequisite to the Federal Mining business, at least in the form of Corporation, which is a sequel to industry, should belong to the the Federal Gas and Oil people; this is to say that industry Corporation, as both industries should belong to the State. There become absorbed into the State. are also those who believe in a The proposed legislation didn't Socialistic State, whose motives' pass, but there is absolutely no are not benevolent. question that it will be redrawn and The strategy against, the resubmitted until it does pass: American free enterprise system in In the meantime, individual mining goes ns follows: prospectors and small operators I . Place the power of decision for are in the process of being placed the mining industry in the hqnds of under new regulations composed a political administrator.. by the Forest Service. The Forest 2. Eliminate the prospector and . Service, as an agency of the time-honor- ed . possible for the orderly small operator. . 3. Create such difficulty for the industry that production fails. 4. Accuse the industry of failure to meet the needs of the Nation. 5. Nationalize the mines. The above-outlinprogram is and proceeding, tragically, the' American public doesn't know that it is happening. In reducing the situation to basics, it becomes a consideration of whether the majority influence in Washington is inclined toward and sacred concepts of personal liberty, expressing itself in a free enterprise system, or inclined toward a Socialistic State, where men are but slaves to the ed - environment exist. In the past, the wisdom to maintain the concept and spirit of the 1872 Laws which provided automobiles, if the manufacturers can continue to acquire the metals ' required to build them. ' As the standardof living continues to rise in the rest of the world, unlimited supplies of cheap metals are becoming more a thing of the past. We are also finding that the foreign nations, as our suppliers, are learning to use our vital mineral needs in exercising political pressures which could conceivably bring the Nation to its knees or worse. In regard to mining in the West, it is imperative that the very best ed situation we as a people are rapidly moving into; The difficulties of supplying the demand as reflected in current prices is moving the United States very rapidly into the Minerals Shortage Crisis. We are affording gasoline for our automobiles, if we can buy it ait all. Likewise, since the Minerals Shortage Crisis is already upon us, we should be concerned about being able to continue to buy rd so-call- about 1 . a - - - . |