Does anyone know whether this is genuine? (re. Bush Senior)

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I've just received one of those "round robin" emails, which I have copied and pasted below.

This sounds horrendous, if it is true!

Can anyone shed more light on this project? Is Bush Senior involved in some way?

If it turns out to be total b*llocks, I won't forward it on.....if, however, it turns out to be true, then at least I've done my bit to publicise it a bit more, by putting it on A2K.

It has a contact address in the email, but if the mods want to remove it, then I can always provide it to people via PM, if they wish to send anything to the people concerned.

Email....exactly as I received it......

"The least we can do is sign...only a few minutes to
copy and paste!

Dear friends who care about our earth. Judge for
yourself if you want to take action.
In the Valle de San Felix, the purest water in Chile
runs from 2 rivers, fed by 2 glaciers.
Water is a most precious resource, and wars will be
fought for it.
Indigenous farmers use the water, there is no
unemployment, and they provide the second largest
source of income for the area.
Under the glaciers has been found a huge deposit of
gold, silver and other minerals. To get at these, it
would be necessary to break, to destroy
the glaciers - something never conceived of in the
history of the world - and to make 2 huge holes, each
as big as a whole mountain, one for extraction
and one for the mine's rubbish tip.

The project is called PASCUA LAMA. The company is
called Barrick Gold.
The operation is planned by a multi-national company,
one of whose members is George Bush Senior.
The Chilean Government has approved the project to
start this year, 2006.
The only reason it hasn't started yet is because the
farmers have got a temporary stay of execution.
If they destroy the glaciers, they will not just
destroy the source of specially pure water, but they
will permanently contaminate the 2 rivers so
they will never again be fit for human or animal
consumption because of the use of cyanide and
sulphuric acid in the extraction process.
Every last gramme of gold will go abroad to the
multinational company and not one will be left with
the people whose land it is. They will only
be left with the poisoned water and the resulting
illnesses.

The farmers have been fighting a long time for their
land, but have been forbidden to make a TV appeal by a
ban from the Ministry of the Interior.
Their only hope now of putting brakes on

this project
is to get help from international justice.
The world must know what is happening in Chile. The
only place to start changing the world is from here.
We ask you to circulate this message amongst your
friends in the following way. Please copy this text,
paste it into a new email adding your
signature and send it to everyone in your address
book. Please will the 100th person to receive and sign
the petition send it to [email protected] to
be forwarded to the Chilean government.

No to Pascua Lama Open-cast mine in the Andean
Cordillera on the Chilean-Argentine frontier.

We ask the Chilean Government not to authorize the
Pascua Lama project to protect the whole of 3
glaciers, the purity of the water of the San Felix
Valley and El Transito, the quality of the

agricultural land of the region of Atacama, the
quality of life of the Diaguita people and of the
whole population of the region."

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The jury seems to be out on snopes.com http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=9;t=002017;p=1

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http://www.minesandcommunities.org/Action/press878.htm
Doubts rise over Pascua Lama

10th January 2006

Chile: Presidential Candidates Voice Doubts about Pascua-Lama Project

DIARIO SIETE, OCEAN PRESS RELEASE

more to read
http://www.black-river.ca/pdf/Chilean%20Tour%20Report%20-%20Jan%2031,%202006.pdf

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I have not heard of this but my experience in Chile would suggest that if you cross the right palms, anything is possible. However almost all of Chile's water is derived from glaciers, there is very little rainfall, so if this is real there is certain to be a major ruckus.

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Here's some background and explanation of procedure.

Don't know if Bush Sr. was thrown in as a political play, or if he really has something to do with one of the companies. Will have to dig deeper.

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Interesting source on Barrick / Bush connection.

You May Find This Interesting, as well.

Sounds like the e-mail you recieved is expressing legitimate concern.

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Oh, you're good, you lot! How do you do it?

Personally, I think that Squinney should open a detective Agency.

Many thanks, people. It appears to be a pretty genuine article.

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weblink Pure Water & Barrick Gold Corp. Mining
This is the weblink to the Barrick Gold Corp.'s website, specifically their spin on the Pascua Lama site.

So the question up is: what is more precious, water or gold?

http://www.barrick.com/Default.aspx?SectionID=AE16ED96-78D3-4451-AB11-281B502746FB&LanguageID=1&ProjectId=8fadb7a7-1b99-4e7b-a37d-9da4b178f0b2

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Re: Does anyone know whether this is genuine? (re. Bush Seni

Lord Ellpus wrote:

. . . and to make 2 huge holes, each
as big as a whole mountain, one for extraction
and one for the mine's rubbish tip.

Seems like they're going to need a third hole to hold the orignial contents of the rubbish pit, doesn't it?

Pardon me for not following all the links. Maybe this evening. That part of the plan sort of grabbed my attention, though.

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Did anyone else post this?

Pascua Lama Background

Sunday April 17, 2005 02:20 PM
(Taken from “Exile of the Cóndor: Transnational Hegemony on the Border: the Mining Treaty Between Chile and Argentina” – Moon, Padilla and Alcayata, Stgo, 2004)
Pascua Lama is a mining project consisting of the open-pit exploitation of a deposit of gold, silver and copper ore and its processing to produce doré (gold and silver) and copper concentrate.

The deposit is located high in the Andes on the Chilean-Argentinean border, about 150 kilometres to the south-east of the city of Vallenar in the Commune of Alto del Carmen, Province of Huasco, III Region of Chile.

The nearest communities are Chollay and Las Breas, located 35 and 55 km away, respectively.

The project is bi-national in that it will have workings and operations in both Chilean and Argentine territory. In Argentina, the project is located about 300 km to the north-east of the city of San Juan, in the Department of Iglesia, Province of San Juan.

The operational area is established according to Additional Protocols 20 and 23 of the 16th Economic Complementarity Agreement of negotiated between Chile and Argentina within the framework of the 1980 Treaty of Montevideo.

A large part of the open pit will be in Chilean territory, as well as a waste rock dump, the processing plant, primary crusher, mine equipment maintenance complex, and powder magazine for the storage of explosives.

These facilities will be located in the headwaters of the Estrecho River, tributary of the Chollay River, at 4,400 metres above sea level.

In Argentine territory a smaller portion of the open pit will be built, along with a waste rock dump, a processing plant, a tailings pond, the construction camp (for 4,000 people) and operation camp (for 1,000 people), in addition to a private aerodrome.

The ore will be extracted of the mine at the rate of 15 million tons per year and sent to a primary crusher in Chilean territory, to reduce its size. Then it will be transported by means of a conveyor belt to processing facilities located in Argentine territory, crossing the border through a 2.7 km long tunnel.

In the processing plant the ore will undergo secondary crushing, milling, and washing operations.

The so-called refractory ore will be processed by means of conventional flotation to obtain copper concentrates. The non-refractory ore, as well as wastes from the flotation circuit, will be processed by means of leaching with sodium cyanide, precipitation with zinc, and refinement to obtain “doré” metal.

The water requirement for the Pascua-Lama Project will be 370 l/s in total. This demand will be supplied from the Taguas River in Argentina.

Barrick is proposing to extract additional water in Chile for the operations of the mine and factories, with an estimated requirement of up to 42 l/s that will be taken from the Estrecho and Toro rivers. Barrick will have the corresponding utilisation rights under the legislation of each country.

There will be terrestrial access from both sides of the border. In Chile access will be from the city of Vallenar, via the road that connects Vallenar with the Alto del Carmen area, followed by a secondary road to be developed up the entire Carmen River valley.

The amount of the investment has been estimated to be 950 million dollars.

The Project has a productive life of 20 years according to the present reserve estimates, and it will produce 5,000 tons of copper in concentrates, 615,000 ounces of gold and 18.2 million ounces of silver annually.

The companies developing the project are: Company Minera Nevada S.A. in Chile, and Barrick Exploraciones Argentina S.A. and Exploraciones Mineras Argentinas S.A., in Argentina.

Delayed Beginning
In May of 2000, senior executives of the company announced that operation would begin in the 2003. This announcement and the presentation of a plan of work for Pascua-Lama were made before authorities of Region III, including among others the Intendant of Atacama, the Governor of Huasco, the Mayor of Vallenar, the Mayor of Alto del Carmen, the Mayor of Freirina, and SEREMI.

In recent years, the gold market has gone through significant oscillations, which has caused the beginning of the Pascua-Lama Project to be significantly delayed and its terms to be reframed. The fundamental problem is centred on the gradual and substantial increase of costs that the project has undergone, which has forced the company to make a detailed analysis in order to optimise the initial plan.

Logically, it is a matter of price fluctuations. In the recent past, the price of gold has experienced a significant fall and this continued for a certain period, so the company has had to change its priorities regarding projects and mediate profitability.

Nevertheless, senior executives of Barrick have indicated their conviction that the market will evolve favourably and the finalisation of Pascua Lama could be achieved in 2005.

Barrick’s plans are to develop the auriferous district of Pascua-Lama as a large operation that would begin its first stage with the exploitation of the high-yield oxides of the Veladero project.

Glacier removal and handling
The information available in the EIA only establishes that this will have an approximate surface area of 10 hectares and that “the sectors of glacier that will have to be removed will be determined with the appropriate lead time in accord with the updated mining plan.” There are no estimates of thickness or the equivalent in water.

The lack of relevant technical expertise in removing glaciers implies an irreversible environmental impact. What is certain is that the three affected glaciers would suffer an environmental impact. Nevertheless, there is no certainty whatsoever of what the impact would be on glaciers or permafrost (frozen rock or soil) from the road network and the associated stabilization measures that generally involves the use of salts.

With respect to the measures and actions that will be implemented for handling glaciers there are the following concerns:

• The “clearing” of ice or “pieces of glacier” will be done by bulldozer and front-end loader until the entire rock bed is uncovered. In this case, any mechanical action on the glacier will cause heat transfer, which will raise the temperature of the ice, and which in turn would be exacerbated by the high local insolation. Despite the fact that diurnal temperatures are low, the radiative balance includes more than caloric energy. There are no measurements of radiative energy but the albedo differences between ice and rock mean that the absorption of energy is greater in rock, which would expose the glacier even more.

• This also the case for controlled blasting and pushing the glaciers by the afore-mentioned means until their final disposition. In the case of blasting, this could elevate the temperature to thresholds of melting and evaporation which would further encourage destruction of the glacier.

• Removing the glacier to a similar level is not synonymous with conservation. The regional snow line, above which altitude snow accumulation is perennial, only contributes matter to a system that has tendency to lose mass naturally (through ablation). With an average annual precipitation of 216 mm (90% snow), the existence of glaciers in a semi-arid environment is due to the conservation of inherited relict paleoclimates. The regional snow line is at an altitude of 5000-6000 metres above mean sea level, meaning that snow accumulation is insignificant in terms of its contribution to the glacier, and can easily be less than the glacier’s equilibrium point. (Any accumulation in the system is the result of snow surviving through the spring of a hydrological year.) In the same way, there is no place with similar characteristics outside the influence of the project.

• The exclusive destination of the area post-removal, the use of low-slope sites, the adaptation of berms and machinery, not using creeks with thaw run-off, and the similarity of geologic and geomorphologic characteristics of surface formations – all have no relation whatever with the conservation of the glacier.

• Regarding the environmental viability of the glacier intervention, the proportion of the intervention (10 hectares) of the totality of the glaciated area and the reversibility and recoverability of the intervention must be emphasized since there is no information available on a management plan similar to that proposed. The specific report of “structure and glacier dynamics” must necessarily be expanded to include variables like recent flow, morphology, characteristics and variations, thickness, foliation, meteorological measurements,¬ and ablation. Only with an integrated analysis of these variables, and others that are considered pertinent, can a mass balance curve be projected to contrast with the intervention. There are questions arising as to how to reliably establish environmental viability. On the contrary, it is possible to suppose that the impact as a result of the removal will be irreversible and non-recoverable.

Finally, it is necessary to specify what is understood by compensation measures if the removal of the glacier means its disappearance. In this sense, if the glaciers disappear no compensation is possible in terms of maintaining baseline environmental quality previous to the project, since it is practically impossible to regenerate a glacier, or if it is, such a procedure is unknown......

FROM HERE

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One interesting aspect of this story which seems to be lost in the controversy over the environmental damage (which is significant) If I understand it correctly this operation will produce ore concentrate and not metal. I saw the same thing in Bolivia where the mining companies produced concentrate that was then shipped out of the country to be smelled and processed elsewhere, generally the US. As a result the host country gets stuck with the environmental problems and gets none of the advantages from having a valuable mine in their territory.

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Pascua luma gold mines
With regard to needing two holes the size of mountains for the displaced material from the the mines, which seems damn near impossible to me for a start, logic tells me you will need another two holes to dump the material from the first two holes, or you create two new mountains, and so on. That's without even considering the fact that when you dig a hole and fill it in again, you will always have material left over. Try it.
Next, who gives a damn if George Bush, George Galloway, George Best or George Washington is involved? If something's wrong, it's wrong, and if something's wrong, give us the facts, not mountains of irrelevant BS that could alienate otherwise sympathetic people like me.

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Snopes is now saying that it is true, and with extensive more information at:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/pascualama.asp

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Does anyone know whether this is genuine? (re. Bush Senior)

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