While the proprietors of the proposed Gogebic Taconite (GTac) open-pit mine in Wisconsin may tell you that ingesting arsenic is a harmless act, don't believe them.
Arsenic is a toxin, a cancer-causing agent that can be found in the Earth's crust, a
fact some will tell you disconfirms arsenic's danger.
Take Bill Williams, president of GTac.
Don't believe Williams. He and GTac are in northern Wisconsin, and in a premeditated act they will poison the residents and toxify the waters, if the have their way in ripping open the largest open pit mine on the planet in Iron and Ashland counties.
The Center for Public Integrity has a piece today by David Heath entitled
What to do if your drinking water contains arsenic? The short answer is stop immediately.
But politicians like Wisconsin State Rep. Tom Tiffany (Hazelhurst, Wisconsin) and Scott Walker have other ideas: Front for the GTac mining companies and the families up north can move, if they don't like it.
Meanwhile, the fight goes on:
"With contaminants such as mercury, arsenic, and other heavy metals, sulfates, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides being released from mining tailings' waste dust, waste rock, ore transportation and ore processing, the air and water quality in northern Wisconsin could have been seriously polluted," notes the
Wisconsin Sierra Club, accessing the Proposed Taconite Mine in the Penokee Range in Northern Wisconsin. "While we were seriously concerned about (Christopher Cline's) mining
ventures destroying our beautiful lands, endangering the lives of our
workers and surrounding community members, and pollution from mining
dirtying our clean air and water,
we
found that Chris Cline was living in a 33,000 square-foot house
(pictured right) and enjoyed taking his investors on his 164-foot-long
yacht named,
'Mine Games'. Wisconsin simply couldn't risk being a pawn in this sort of 'game.'"
It should be remembered that Bill Williams is to stand trial in Spain for arsenic poisoning of an aquifer there.
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