THE DAWN STORY

Dawn Mining Company (Owned by Newmont Mining Corp.) mined uranium on the Spokane Indian Reservation and processed it into yellowcake at Ford, Washington. The company ceased operations in 1982 and must clean up after itself, but claims there is no money to do so. Its parent, the wealthy and powerful Newmont Mining Corporation says it is not financially responsible for the reclamation. Newmont solution is to convert a gigantic hole into a radioactive waste dump.

DAWN WATCH

The Dawn Watch mission is to collect, organized and disseminate information about the Dawn Mining Company's (owned by Newmont Mining Corp) reclamation of their defuct uranium mill in Washington State.

NEWMONT OPPOSED BY INDIGINOUS PEOPLE

Tribal elders from around the northernmost mountains of the island of Luzon in the Philippines gathered in the village of Kili to sign a "bodong" (traditional unity pact) to oppose plan by Newmont to dig for gold on their ancestral lands.

LAWSUIT AGAINST SPCC IN TEXAS US, FOR HEALTH HAZARDS

For more than 30 years the city of Ilo, located at south dessertic Peruvian coast is affected by a permanent aggression to the environment and health as result of mining activities of the Southern Peru Copper
Corporation (owned by Newmont Mining Corp). Nearly 728 people from Ilo, most of them children who have medical reports of respiratory illnesses they suffer presented a plaintiff in September 1995 at the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Corpus Christi Division.

(Reproduced for electronic posting by Newmont Watch).

SHOSHONE TRIBAL MEMBER ON NEWMONT

WESTERN SHOSHONE DEFENSE PROJECT
P.O. Box 211106
Crescent Valley, Nevada 89821

To the Friends of the Earth Mother,

Newmont Mining Corporation is now the largest mining company in North America. Newmont dominates the “Carlin Trend,” in northeastern Nevada, the largest gold district in North America. Yet Newmont and other mining corporations use this land without the input or the consent of the Western Shoshone people. Newmont continues to ignore the rights and responsibilities, given by the Creator, to the Western Shoshone people to protect our Mother Earth.

Newmont continues to destroy the sacredness of the Mother Earth. To a traditional person, the waters, lands and air are givers of live. These are the most sacred. The traditional Western Shoshone people watch and see the contamination of the air, waters and land. Yet, the United States, Bureau of Land Management, the State, and most of all the mining corporation, say that it is okay.

Newmont Mining company has also destroyed cultural and religious sites of the Western Shoshone in its gold mining ventures, including what is called the James Creek Shelter. When a mining company knowingly destroys our way of life, they are knowingly committing genocide to our culture and religion.

In the Western Shoshone creation story, it tells about the use of rocks, if they are to be used at all. All rocks must be used for good purposes, not to destroy. But the nuclear industry has used the rocks against all life on Earth Mother. The nuclear industry has contaminated so much of Western Shoshone land. Over 1,000 nuclear bombs have been exploded over the Nevada Nuclear Test site. Now they want to bring the nation’s nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain. The low-level nuclear waste dump south of Beatty, Nevada is now reporting radioactive waste leaking into the ground and water table. Surely this water contamination will be left for tomorrow’s children.

We hear the Newmont wants to bury low-level nuclear waste in their abandoned uranium mine to raise money for their reclamation costs. I don’t believe a large multinational mining corporation like Newmont is concerned about the costs of reclamation. A few month’s profits from their gold operations here in Western Shoshone lands could cover their costs.

But from what my family and I have seen, Newmont is only interested in making and taking more, not cleaning up. We know of cyanide and sulfuric acid leaks at Newmont’s gold mines that were ignored. Newmont’s employees were being contaminated by mercury fumes that blew in their lunchroom. Newmont denied it right up to the point where they couldn’t hide from it any longer. One of my family members was fired by Newmont because he was more concerned about the health and safety of fellow co-workers during a fire than himself.

It is clear to me that to allow Newmont to bury low-level nuclear waste in their uranium mine is an insult to all life. As a traditional person, I must think of the generations to come and of those who have no voice. Without clean air and clean waters there can be no life.

Carrie Dann

Citizen of the Western Shoshone Nation
Director of the Western Shoshone Defense Project