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Community by Will Patric, with Staff Nationwide The impacts of mineral developmem hie hardest on the folks e~ho lire downstream, downN'ind, in the path ojrhe plume of contarninared groundwater, nett to the abandoned railings pile or the once-bustling open pie, now patiemlp filling with acidic ,+~aters. Where new mines are proposed. the (oval community needs information now', nor promises from Congress. Will Patric, Mineral Polin• Center's Northern Rockies Circuit Rider, has spent the fast year working with a ,'ariep~ of citizen groupsfrom Oregon and li'ashingron ro the Dakotas. !r has been a rich timefor all-some major romrnunin~ gains have been scored. Will, acid MPC, are proud to have been there ro help, but dte real ,work... and the real victories... belarg ro the folks +vho lire there. Chesaw, Washington: Residents of several small communities in the hill country surroundin¢ the Okanogan National Forest har'e united to form a strong voice: they are challenging a proposal by Battle 1r1ountain Gold and Crown Resources to develop a large open-pit gold mine on Buckhom Ivtountain. The project is called the "Crown Jewel Project," a term many feel is more fitting for the county} side without the mine. A new com- munity group, the Okanogan Highlands Alliance, has been organized to serve as an um- brella organization for citizen concerns. The Alliance has been active and effective. It studied the project, published a fact sheet. and organized a citizens' open house. The "official" presentations to the community about the project had been incomplete and one-sided. The Alliance, aided by MPC, brought Joe Gallegos from San Luis, Colorado, [o discuss the difficult experiences that community has had with Battle Mountain Gold. Thanks to the Alliance's hard work, the Crown Jewel Project is being subjected to tight scrutiny: it may be disapproved, or, if approved i[ will be much more closely monitored and safer for all. Helena, Montana: Two state croups, Montana Environmental Information Center and the Mon[ana Freedom of Information Hotline, recently filed suit in State coup, seeking disclosure of slate files with information on mining exploration and mining im- pacts. State officials have repeatedly refused [o reveal information~ven information on violations of water-quality laws and permit conditions-in response to citizen queries. The MEiC/MFiH lawsuit led the Court to strike down the Montana law which concealed min- ing'sdirty secrets, on the grounds that it violated a guarantee of citizen rights to information which is in the Montana state constitution. San Luis, (/OlOradO: Since Battle Mountain Gold began mining in the hills above the small southern Colorado town of San Luis, local grassroots activists have con- tended that the company's cyanide gold leaching operations threatened the valle}''s groundwater resources. BMG countered with the claim that i[s "state of the an" facilities could do no wrong. However, after long neglectins to file required monitoring reports, BMG acknowledged in March, 1992, that the levels of c}'anide in its tailings pond were more than fifty times higher than its permit allowed. The Colorado Mined Land Reclama- tion Boazd, which had failed to properly enforce the BMG permit for tw•o }'ears, fined the company 5168,000. The Costilla County Committee for Environmental Soundness has worked hard to yet proper controls over [he BMG operation. Local San Luis and Costilla County officials are increasingly concerned about BMC's knowing violation o(permit conditions. The State's 1992 +~ Winter * IS ... , Local Impact, Local Action