Mining Archives

A view of dead trees affected by gold mine waste, known as tailings, in Timika, Papua Province, Indonesia.

Environment

A Proposed Gold Mine in Indonesia Could Have a Catastrophic Environmental Impact

The proposed mine would sit within Cenderawasih Bay National Park, while parts of it also overlap onto or border the Wondiwoi Mountains Nature Reserve—both protected areas.

Basten Gokkon

An explosive is detonated at a surface mining operation in the Appalachian Mountains on April 16th, 2012, in Wise County, Virginia.

Environment

A Top DOI Official Had at Least Six Meetings With the Mining Industry. She Then Helped Cancel a Study on the Public-Health Effects of Mining.

Records obtained by Pacific Standard reveal that a top official at the DOI had a hand in nixing a government-funded public-health study in Appalachia—after a series of meetings with some of the most powerful mining players in the country.

Jimmy Tobias

The Menominee River in Niagara, Wisconsin.

Can the Menominee Tribe in Wisconsin Block the Back Forty Mine?

With a Canadian company looking to mine gold, silver, and copper on ancestral lands, opponents worry about toxic water and the destruction of Menominee heritage.

Sophie Yeo

Environment

Inside the Ecologically Damaging Practice of Illegal Sand Mining

As real estate building increases across the world, so too does the illegal extract of sand, which results in serious environmental impacts.

Alexandra Popescu

Environment

B.H.P. Billiton Plans to Withdraw From Coal Association Over Climate Change Stance

The mining company also said that, given the Trump administration's plans to abandon the Paris Agreement, it will reconsider its relationship with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Kate Wheeling

U.S. President Donald Trump signs H.J. Res. 38, disapproving the rule submitted by the U.S. Department of the Interior known as the Stream Protection Rule in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on February 16th, 2017, in Washington, DC.

Environment

Trump’s Pick for Lead Mining Regulator Once Sabotaged Mining Regulations

Steve Gardner's engineering company was dropped for performing "junk science" to discredit a regulation that it was hired to help prepare.

Ian MacDougall

Environment

Wisconsin Governor Opens Up the State to Controversial Mining Projects

Scott Walker signed legislation Monday ending a nearly 20-year ban on precious metal mining.

Kate Wheeling

Bagdad, Arizona, is seen from a plane Januray 30th, 2017. Bagdad is a copper mining community and census-designated place in Yavapai County, Arizona.

Environment

Trump Administration Decides Not to Require Mining Companies to Pay for Clean-Up

The Obama administration proposed the rule last year to ensure that companies demonstrate their ability to pay for environmental clean-up.

Emily Moon

Environment

House Votes to Overturn Obama-era Ban, Allowing More Mining in Minnesota

Democrats warn that mining expansion could devastate Minnesota's Superior National Forest.

Emily Moon

Widows of deceased striking miners who were killed during the Marikana massacre, walk from the memorial site, during the event's fifth anniversary in Marikana, on August 16, 2017. Thousands of South African miners sang remembrance songs on August 16, 2017, at the site of the 2012 Marikana massacre where police shot dead 34 strikers, as campaigners demanded prosecutions and compensation. The 34 miners were gunned down after police were deployed to break up a wildcat strike that had turned violent at the Lonmin-owned Marikana platinum mine, northwest of Johannesburg.

News in Brief

Viewfinder: Mining Widows March to Commemorate Their Deceased Husbands in South Africa

Widows of deceased striking miners who were killed during the Marikana massacre walk from the memorial site during the event's fifth anniversary in Marikana on August 16th, 2017.

Pacific Standard Staff