The proposed U.S. excise tax on cyanide used in mining and mineral activities threatens thousands of jobs in the U.S. gold mining industry says the American Mining Congress (AMC).
According to Representative Les AuCoin, the politician from Oregon proposing legislation that would impose the US50 cents per lb. tax, ponds containing cyanide solution at mining sites are a fatal attraction to migratory waterfowl.
But the AMC says a recent federal government report concludes that the mining industry’s use of cyanide has “resulted in minimal environmental damage.” Few cyanide discharges have contacted ground or surface water and in those few cases it has usually been in remote areas and not affected drinking water supplies, says the study.
The AMC says the study concluded that the number of bird deaths attributed to the mining industry’s use of cyanide “represents only a fraction of the bird deaths caused by hunting.”
In its statement, the AMC says the bill “poses a real threat to the livelihoods of thousands of American workers.”
The AMC points out that in Nevada, where cyanide heap leach mining is popular, 15,000 miners are employed and mining contributes US$78.6 million in state and local taxes.
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