Salanpur (community development block)

Salanpur is a community development block that forms an administrative division in Asansol subdivision of Paschim Bardhaman district in the Indian state of West Bengal.
Geography.
Rupnarainpur, a gram panchayat in Salanpur CD Block, is located at .
Salanpur CD Block is part of the Ajay Damodar Barakar tract. This area is sort of an extension of the Chota Nagpur Plateau. It is a rocky undulating area with laterite soil, with the Ajay on the north, the Damodar on the south and the Barakar on the west. For ages the area was heavily forested and infested with plunderers and marauders. The discovery of coal, in the eighteenth century, led to industrialisation of the area and most of the forests have been cleared.
Salanpur CD Block is bounded by Jamtara and Nala CD Blocks, in Jamtara district of Jharkhand, on the north, Barabani CD Block on the east, Asansol (municipal corporation) and after that Neturia CD Block, in Purulia district, on the south and Nirsa and Baliapur CD Blocks, in Dhanbad district of Jharkhand, on the west.
Salanpur CD Block has an area of . It has 1 panchayat samity, 11 gram panchayats, 96 gram sansads (village councils), 74 mouzas and 69 inhabited villages. Chittaranjan and Salanpur police stations serve this block. Headquarters of this CD Block is at Rupnarayanpur.
Nunia, a small stream about 40 km long has its origin near Adra village in the Salanpur area, flows through the Barabani area, past Asansol and joins the Damodar in the Raniganj area.
Gram panchayats of Salanpur block/panchayat samiti are: Achhra, Alladi, Basudevpur-Jemari, Dendua, Ethora, Fulberia-Bolkunda, Jitpur-Uttarrampur, Kallya, Rupnarayanpur, Salanpur and Samdi.
Demographics.
Population.
As per the 2011 Census of India Salanpur CD Block had a total population of 160,357, of which 101,360 were rural and 61,697 were urban. There were 83,796 (51%) males and 79,261 (49%) females. Population below 6 years was 17,118. Scheduled Castes numbered 39,294 (24.10%) and Scheduled Tribes numbered 17,084 (10.48%).
As per 2001 census, Salanpur block had a total population of 156,338, out of which 82,741 were males and 73,597 were females. Salanpur block registered a population growth of 9.64 per cent during the 1991-2001 decade. Decadal growth for Bardhaman district was 14.36 per cent. Decadal growth in West Bengal was 17.84 per cent. Scheduled castes at 35,898 formed around one-fifth the population. Scheduled tribes numbered 17,143.
Census Towns in Salanpur CD Block are (2011 census figures in brackets): Chittaranjan (39,098) and Hindusthan Cables Town (22,599).
Large villages (with 4,000+ population) in Salanpur CD Block are (2011 census figures in brackets): Salanpur (4,739), Jemari (4,321), Ethora (4,547) and Kalya (703).
Other villages in Salanpur CD Block include (2011census figures in brackets): Alladi (2,384), Dendua (2,297), Rupnarayanpur (2,242), Uttarrampur (1,331), Jitpur (1,532), Achhra (2,584), Phulberya (1,918), Bolkunda (1,351), Shyamdi (3,265) and Basudebpur (3,098).
Literacy.
As per the 2011 census the total number of literates in Salanpur CD Block was 114,940 (78.76% of the population over 6 years) out of which males numbered 64,520 (86.12% of the male population over 6 years) and females numbered 50,420 (70.99% of the female population over 6 years). The gender disparity (the difference between female and male literacy rates) was 15.13%.
As per 2001 census, Salanpur block had a total literacy of 78.22 per cent for the 6+ age group. While male literacy was 87.07 per cent female literacy was 68.20 per cent. Bardhaman district had a total literacy of 70.18 per cent, male literacy being 78.63 per cent and female literacy being 60.95 per cent.
See also – List of West Bengal districts ranked by literacy rate
Language and religion.
As per census definition, mother-tongue is the language spoken in childhood by the person's mother to the person. As a mother-tongue, Bengali has decreased its share from 82.3% of the population of Bardhaman district in 1961 to 79.9% in 2001, Hindi has increased its share from 8.5% in 1961 to 10.9% in 2001 Santali has remained steady at around 4.9% during the period, and Urdu has increased its share from 2.4% in 1961 to 2.6% in 2001. Other mother-tongues spoken in 2001 were: Odiya (0.3%), Punjabi (0.2%), Koda/Kora (0.2%), Telugu (0.1%), Bhojpuri (0.1%), Nepali (0.1%) and Kurukh/ Oraon (0.1%).
As of 2017, CD Block-wise/ other region-wise break-up of mother tongue is not available in census/ other official sources. There have been reports in the media about the Hindi speaking population being substantial in the Asansol (Lok Sabha constituency). Bardhaman district provided attractive livelihood opportunities for immigrants from Bihar/ Jharkhand.
According to the West Bengal Official Language Act 1961 and the West Bengal Official Language (Amendment Act) 2012, the Bengali language is to be used for official purposes in the whole of West Bengal. In addition to Bengali, the Nepali language is to be used for official purposes in the three hills subdivisions, namely Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong, in the district of Darjeeling, and Urdu is to be used for official purposes in district/subdivision/ block/ municipality where the population speaking Urdu exceeds 10% of the total population. The English language will continue to be used for official purposes as it was being used prior to the enactment of these laws.
The West Bengal Official Language (Second Amendment) Bill, 2012, included Hindi, Santhali, Odiya and Punjabi as official languages if it is spoken by a population exceeding 10 per cent of the whole in a particular block or sub-division or a district. Subsequently, Kamtapuri, Rajbanshi and Kurmali were also included in the list of minority languages by the West Bengal Official Language (Second Amendment) Bill, 2018. However, as of 2019, there is no official / other reliable information about the areas covered.
In the 2011 census Hindus numbered 153,776 and formed 94.31% of the population in Salanpur CD Block. Muslims numbered 5,825 and formed 3.57% of the population. Christians numbered 1,816 and formed 1.11% of the population. Others numbered 1,640 and formed 1.01% of the population.
Rural poverty.
As per poverty estimates obtained from household survey for families living below poverty line in 2005, rural poverty in Salanpur CD Block was 24.27%.
Economy.
Livelihood.
In Salanpur CD Block in 2011, amongst the class of total workers, cultivators numbered 2,291 and formed 4.41% of the total workers, agricultural labourers numbered 3,288 and formed 6.44%, household industry workers numbered 1,133 and formed 2.22% and other workers numbered 44.346 and formed 86.85%. Total workers numbered 51,058 and formed 31.31% of the total population, and non-workers numbered 111,999 and formed 68.69% of the population.
Coalmines are spread across the Andal, Pandaveswar, Raniganj, Jamuria, Barabani and Salanpur region, including municipal areas. Livelihood in this region is coal-centred. The area does not produce much of agricultural products. Overall work participation rate, and female work participation rate, in the mining area are low. Interestingly the work participation rate in the predominantly agricultural rural areas of erstwhile Bardhaman district is higher than in the predominantly urbanised mining area. Human development in the mining area does not at all look good. However, in the composite livelihood index the mining area performs much better than the non-mining areas of erstwhile Bardhaman district. The decadal (1991-2001) change in composition of workers shows the growing pressure of population growth, as well as of migrants from adjacent Jharkhand.
Infrastructure.
All 74 or 100% of mouzas in Salanpur CD Block were electrified by 31 March 2014.
All 74 mouzas in Salanpur CD Block had drinking water facilities in 2013–14. There were 9 fertiliser depots, 3 seed stores and 32 fair price shops in the CD Block.
Coal mining.
Coal mining in India first started in the Raniganj Coalfield. In 1774, John Sumner and Suetonius Grant Heatly of the British East India Company found coal near Ethora, presently in Salanpur CD Block.
See also – Salanpur Area and Sodepur Area of Eastern Coalfields
Mohanpur open cast project in Salanpur Area of Eastern Coalfields is undergoing expansion to 2.5 million tonnes per year.
Gourandi Extension In Salanpur Area of Eastern Coalfields has a mineable reserve of 15.44 million tonnes.
With extensive underground mining for many years, this area has been facing the problem of land subsidence. About 361 villages under the Raniganj and Salanpur coalfield areas are the victims of subsidence.
Industry.
Chittaranjan Locomotive Works at Chittaranjan is one of the largest electric locomotive manufacturers in the world. Established in 1950, it produced steam locomotives up to 1972. It is named after the great Indian independence movement activist, Chittaranjan Das.
The Rupnarayanpur unit of Hindustan Cables was closed on 1 February 2017. Hindustan Cables was set up in 1952 at Rupnarayanpur. It later set up units at Hyderabad and Naini, Allahabad. Both the Rupnarayanpur and Hyderabad units, which produced polythene insulated jelly filled cables, had stopped producing in 2003, as BSNL and MTNL did not need such cables anymore.
Bhushan Steel signed an agreement with the West Bengal government to set a 2 million tonne steel plant, with auxiliary facilities, at Salanpur, in 2007. The company expected to get around 2,500 acres of land acquired in the subsequent one year and start production in 2012. With growing resistance to land acquisition the state government was not able to make much headway. In 2012, Bhusan Steel put the project on hold.
Agriculture.
Although the Bargadari Act of 1950 recognised the rights of bargadars to a higher share of crops from the land that they tilled, it was not implemented fully. Large tracts, beyond the prescribed limit of land ceiling, remained with the rich landlords. From 1977 onwards major land reforms took place in West Bengal. Land in excess of land ceiling was acquired and distributed amongst the peasants. Following land reforms land ownership pattern has undergone transformation. In 2013–14, persons engaged in agriculture in Salanpur CD Block could be classified as follows: bargadars 2.44%, patta (document) holders 37.94%, small farmers (possessing land between 1 and 2 hectares) 5.68%, marginal farmers (possessing land up to 1 hectare) 27.08% and agricultural labourers 26.86%.
In 2003-04 net cropped area in Salanpur CD Block was 4,681 hectares and the area in which more than one crop was grown was 946 hectares.
In 2013–14, Salanpur CD Block produced 17,215 tonnes of Aman paddy, the main winter crop, from 8,142 hectares. It also produced pulses.
Banking.
In 2013–14, Salanpur CD Block had offices of 7 commercial banks and 2 gramin banks.
Transport.
Salanpur CD Block has 6 originating/ terminating bus routes.
The Asansol-Patna section of the Howrah-Delhi main line passes through this CD Block. There are stations at Salanpur and Rupnarayanpur,
The Kolkata-Delhi NH 19 (old numbering NH 2) passes through this block.
State Highway 5 (West Bengal) running from Rupnarayanpur (in Bardhaman district) to Junput (in Purba Medinipur district) originates from this block.
Asansol-Chittaranjan road links to both NH 19 and Grand Trunk Road and thereafter it links to Jamtara in Jharkhand and from there to places such as Dumka and Karmatanr.
Education.
In 2013–14, Salanpur CD Block had 75 primary schools with 10,260 students, 4 middle schools with 379 students, 6 high schools with 3,634 students and 9 higher secondary schools with 7,894 students. Salanpur CD Block had 1 general college with 1,411 students, 5 technical/ professional institution with 730 students and 274 institutions for special and non-formal education with 9,079 students.
Deshbandhu Mahavidyalaya was established at Chittaranjan in 1973. It is affiliated with the Kazi Nazrul University.
Culture.
Kalyaneshwari Temple is a 500-year-old centre of Shakti worship. Legend has it that human sacrifices were offered at Kalyaneshwari in the remote past. The present temple, however, is not very old and was constructed by Panchakot Raj. The temple of Goddess Kalyaneshwari is believed to fulfill the wishes of childless women.
Healthcare.
In 2014, Salanpur CD Block had 1 block primary health centre, 3 primary health centres, 2 medical institutions of central government/ PSUs and 2 private nursing homes with total 517 beds and 52 doctors (excluding private bodies). It had 13 family welfare sub centres. 10,229 patients were treated indoor and 117,995 patients were treated outdoor in the hospitals, health centres and subcentres of the CD Block.
Pithaikeary Rural Hospital, with 30 beds, at Rupnarayanpur, is the major government medical facility in the Salanpur CD block. There are primary health centres at Dabor, PO Achra (with 10 beds), and Parbotpur, PO Samdi (with 2 beds). Kasturba Gandhi Hospital at Chittaranjan functions with 150 beds.


Minnesota Discovery Center

The Minnesota Discovery Center, formerly known as Ironworld Discovery Center and originally as the Iron Range Interpretive Center, opened in the 1977 outside Chisholm, Minnesota, United States. It showcases northeastern Minnesota's "history and future" and includes a museum, entertainment venue, research center and library, and a park. The site offers various community programs and events including Polka fests, concerts, and fairs. The property also includes the Iron Man statue, and a memorial to Rudy Perpich. and holds historical documents and artifacts related to mining in the Iron Range.
History.
The museum complex opened in 1977 as the Iron Range Interpretive Center with 34 exhibits and was renamed in 1984 as Ironworld USA. In 2009 it became the Minnesota Discovery Center.
It was built to celebrate the immigrants who built Minnesota's Iron Range mining region, including Italians, Finns, and Yugoslavs. It was supposed to draw tourists from around the state and other parts of the U.S., but in the late 1990s was struggling to live up to attendance expectations.
Due to shifting ground on the property with mine shafts beneath it, the tourist attraction faced a $2 million to $7 million cost in 2004 for filling and shoring up its foundation or to do complete reconstruction. It is located on the old Glen Mine property where there are abandoned mine shafts.
The Center include a 1920s trolley that travels along a "picturesque" railway that winds around the Pillsbury mine pit and Glen mine disembarking at Wilpen Train Depot. There is a renovated 1905 Hill's Finn Boarding House. There is also the Pellet Pete 19 hole mini-golf course. The Ironworld Museum has two floors of "exhibits about geology, mining, immigration and other aspects of the industrial and cultural history of the region," including the taconite mining process and the evolution of the industry on the Iron Range.


Gambleside

Gambleside is an abandoned village located in northern Rossendale close to the boundary with Burnley's Dunnockshaw parish.
In the late Middle Ages Gambleside was one of the cow farms (vaccary) of Rossendale Forest, belonging to the Honour of Clitheroe. In 1507 the land was demised as a copyhold to Oliver and George Ormerode at a rent of £4 per year.
Historically the Gambleside area stretched from Limy Water southeast over the hills into the valley of Whitewell Brook, including land on the southern side of Clough Bottom Reservoir. It formed part of the township of Higher Booths in the ancient parish of Whalley, which became a civil parish in 1866. In 1894, with the creation of Rawtenstall Municipal Borough this part of Higher Booths was incorporated into it.
The settlement was located on a limersgate, a pathway used by pack horses carrying lime, which linked Clitheroe to Rochdale.
Gambleside Colliery was established in 1612 and was worked for over 300 years until 1936. It had two main shafts, a winding shaft on the hillside and Pumping Pit.
The population began to decline after the building of the Clowbridge Reservoir in 1866, which restricted farming in the village. The Ormerod Family continued to live there until about 1874, with the village abandoned during the 1890s.


Thagone mine

The Thagone mine is a large potash mine in northern Laos in Vientiane Province. Thagone is one of the largest potash reserves in Laos having estimated reserves of 50.3 billion tonnes of ore grading 15% potassium chloride.


Jimmy Hood

James Hood (16 May 1948 – 3 December 2017) was a Scottish Labour Party politician, who served as a Member of Parliament from 1987 until being defeated in 2015. He represented the Clydesdale constituency until 2005, and the Lanark and Hamilton East constituency thereafter. Hood, a National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) trade union official during the miners' strike of 1984–85, remained a backbencher throughout his parliamentary career.
Early life.
Jimmy Hood was born in Lesmahagow, Lanarkshire and was educated at the Lesmahagow Higher Grade School in Lesmahagow, Coatbridge College, Motherwell Technical College and the University of Nottingham.
He worked with the National Coal Board (NCB) for 23 years, as a mining engineer from 1964, the year he joined the NUM until 1987. He started his career with the NCB in the Lanarkshire Coalfield, at Auchlochan Colliery, moving to Nottinghamshire on the closure of the Lanarkshire coalfield in the summer of 1968 and became a NUM trade union official in 1973. During the Miners' Strike of 1984–5 he led the striking Nottinghamshire miners.
From 1973 to 1987 he was a member of Ollerton Parish Council. In 1979 he was elected as a councillor to the Newark and Sherwood District Council and served until his election to Westminster.
Parliamentary career.
He was elected to the House of Commons as the Member of Parliament for Clydesdale at the 1987 general election, following the retirement of the sitting Labour MP Judith Hart. Hood won the seat with a majority of 10,502 votes. His Clydesdale-based seat was abolished as part of boundary changes directly before the 2005 general election. Hood then stood for the newly created seat and was elected as MP for Lanark and Hamilton East. He represented the seat until his defeat at the 2015 general election to the Scottish National Party candidate, Angela Crawley.
In Parliament, he joined the left-wing Campaign group and initially refused to pay the poll tax. In 1998, he called for the abolition of the system of parliamentary whips in a debate on workplace bullying, arguing that workplace abuses existed in Parliament "where careers are controlled by the carrot and stick of political patronage" and suggesting that "career assassination" was commonplace. Despite his credentials as a left-wing firebrand, he subsequently came to be regarded as a relatively loyal supporter of Tony Blair's 'New Labour'.
He voted against the first Gulf War, and was one of many Labour rebels that voted against the invasion of Iraq in 2003
In Parliament, he served as the Chairman of the European legislation select committee from 1992 to 2006, having been a member from 1987. He was also member of the Liaison Committee from 1992 to 2006 and on the Defence Select Committee between 1997 and 2001. He was a Member of the Speaker's panel of Chairmen from 1997.
In November 2008, Hood was one of 18 MPs who signed a Commons motion backing a Team GB football team at the 2012 Olympic Games, saying football "should not be any different from other competing sports and our young talent should be allowed to show their skills on the world stage". The football governing bodies of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are all opposed to a Great Britain team, fearing it would stop them competing as individual nations in future tournaments.
In February 2014, Hood outlined his opposition to Scottish independence in a commons debate, stating "Even if the SNP was right and there was a grand, great thing at the end of the rainbow for the SNP and its debate for independence, I would still be against it. If the Scottish people are going to be better off economically and so on, I would still be against breaking away from the Union".
In October 2014, Hood invoked parliamentary privilege to link former Home Secretary Leon Brittan to accusations of improper conduct with children. He added that "I am just repeating what I read in the papers".
On 7 May 2015, Hood was unseated by the Scottish National Party candidate Angela Crawley, a South Lanarkshire Council councillor. Crawley overturned Hood's previous majority of 13,478 votes to command a 10,100 majority for the SNP.
Expenses.
During the MPs expenses scandal, it was reported that Hood had claimed £1,000 per month in second home expenses without claiming receipts, which was up to the permissible limits in place at the time. Hood said his second London home was necessary because of the distance of Westminster from Lanarkshire, and he accepted it would not be possible to make claims of that size in future without receipts and he "fully supported" putting details of expenses online.
Personal life.
He married Marion McCleary in 1967; the couple had a son and a daughter and three grandchildren. He suffered a heart attack in 1998. Hood died of a second heart attack on 3 December 2017, aged 69.


Lillooet

Lillooet (), formerly Cayoosh Flat, is a community on the Fraser River in British Columbia, Canada, about up the British Columbia Railway line from Vancouver. Situated at an intersection of deep gorges in the lee of the Coast Mountains, it has a dry climate with an average of of precipitation being recorded annually. Lillooet has a long growing season, and once had prolific market gardens and orchard produce. It often vies with Lytton and Osoyoos for the title of "Canada's Hot Spot" on a daily basis in summer.
History and culture.
Lillooet is an important location in Aboriginal history and culture and remains one of the main population centres of the Stʼatʼimc (Lillooet Nation). Today it is one of the southernmost communities in North America where indigenous people form the majority. Just over 50 per cent of the people in Lillooet and area are Stʼatʼimc. First Nations communities assert the land is traditional territory since time immemorial. Considered to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited locations on the continent, the area is reckoned by archaeologists to have been inhabited for several thousand years. The immediate area of the town attracted large seasonal and permanent populations of native peoples because of the confluence of several main streams with the Fraser and also because of a rock-shelf just above the confluence of the Bridge River which is an obstacle to migrating salmon. Many archaeological and heritage sites are in the vicinity of the town, including Keatley Creek Archaeological Site, one of the largest ancient pit-house communities in the Pacific Northwest.
This rock shelf, known in gold rush times as the Lower Fountain, was reputedly made by the trickster Coyote, leaping back and forth across the river to create platforms for people to catch and dry fish on. This location, named Sat' or Setl in the native language and known as the Bridge River Rapids or Six Mile in English, is the busiest fishing site on the Fraser above its mouth and there are numerous drying racks scattered around the banks of the river canyon around it.
Fraser Canyon Gold Rush.
The town had its start as one of the main centres of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush of 1858–59, during which it was reckoned to be "the largest town west of Chicago and north of San Francisco", a title also held by certain other towns in British Columbia in rapid succession (Yale first, Barkerville after). Just after this gold rush, the town's layout as it is today was surveyed by the Royal Engineers and its Main Street tied into the original Cariboo Wagon Road or Old Cariboo Road to Fort Alexandria, a huge project undertaken as a toll road by Gustavus Blin Wright, one of the many entrepreneurial personalities of the early colony. Much of its tortuous canyon-brink road grade for twenty or thirty kilometres from "Mile 0" remained in use until the 1970s.
The route via the lakes to Lillooet and up Blin Wright's wagon road to the Cariboo goldfields was outflanked within a few years by the now-better known Cariboo Wagon Road via a shorter and less portage-intensive route from Yale to Barkerville via Ashcroft a few years later. Lillooeters still, however, consider their town to be "Mile 0" of the "original" Cariboo Wagon Road, and it is true that the numbered roadhouse names of the Cariboo district are measured from the bend in Main Street, where a cairn was erected to commemorate this fact. The first stretch of Main Street north from the cairn is said to point due north and at one time was called "the Golden Mile" partly because of all the gold dust reputed to be scattered along it in its heyday, and also because it was the hub of supply for the surrounding goldfields.
Lillooet was originally named Cayoosh Flat, a name that was felt to be unsavoury by the residents of the town at the time of its incorporation in 1860. Since it was at the end of the Lillooet Trail, aka the Douglas Road or Lakes Route, and the Lil'wat native people farther southwest along that route spoke the same language as the native bands near town, the governor was petitioned to change the name to Lillooet, with permission for use of the name granted by the chiefs of the Lower St'at'imc at Mount Currie (Lil'wat) and agreed to by the bands of what is now the Upper St'at'imc.
Lillooet is a First Nations word which may be translated as "wild onion". It appears on Anderson's map of 1849.
Other mining history.
There have been a series of gold rushes in the surrounding region since the original one, including a large hard-rock one in the upper Bridge River Country which began in the 1880s and 1890s but had its peak from the 1930s to the 1950s, focussed on two main mining towns at Bralorne and adjacent Pioneer Mine and that area's main base town of Gold Bridge. Gold mining and prospecting continues in the area to this day, as does prospecting for copper, silver and nephrite jade, though not to the same extent. Until the discovery of even larger deposits of jade near Cassiar, the Lillooet area was the world's largest source of the nephrite form of jade. Unknown tonnes were exported to China before government assayers discovered the nature of the "black rocks" that the Chinese miners found so interesting.
In the 1950s, local farmer and teacher Ron Purvis adapted the skil-saw concept by implementing a diamond rotary blade. This enabled the carving of the many immense jade boulders which line the banks and bed of the Fraser and Bridge Rivers, which were on the one hand immovable and on the other would shatter or striate if blasting was used to break them. Purvis' innovation was revolutionary in the jade mining business and larger versions of his saw are in use in the Cassiar region. There are no major commercial jade mines in the Lillooet area today, although local shops still carry polished jade souvenirs.
The Golden Cache Mine located on Cayoosh Creek just west of Lillooet was believed to hold one of the richest ore bodies of gold until lack of results ended investment, though it started a local prospecting boom with various miners and companies continuing the search for rich veins around the region. Most of those in town for the "Golden Cache boom" headed for the Klondike or the Atlin by 1900.
Japanese relocation centres.
A number of Japanese-Canadian families in Lillooet today are descendants of those who remained in the area after their forced relocation to Lillooet and other nearby camps at Shalalth, Minto City and McGillvray Falls during World War II.
Infrastructure.
Transportation.
The Lillooet Railway Station is a former BC Rail Station. The station is served typically twice per week by the Kaoham Shuttle. There was formerly a service to North Vancouver, the "Cariboo Prospector", but it was discontinued in 2002.
Geography.
South of Lillooet is Lytton () and Hope (). West of Lillooet is Pemberton (), Whistler (), Squamish (), and Vancouver (). East of the town is Cache Creek (), Clinton (), Kamloops (), and Prince George ().
Climate.
Lillooet experiences a semi-arid climate (Köppen "BSk)."
Lillooet (along with Lytton) holds the record for the hottest temperature recorded in British Columbia. On 16 and 17 July 1941, the temperature reached . In addition to the hottest July temperature, the town also holds the record for the hottest temperature recorded in the province during the months of April (), May (), and December (). The coldest temperature recorded was measured at the airport during a November cold snap in 1985.
With an average annual snowfall of , Lillooet is the least snowy place in the BC Interior.
Demographics.
In the 2016 Census, Statistics Canada reported that Lillooet had a population of 2,275 living in 1,074 of its 1,207 total dwellings, a -2% change from its 2011 population of 2,321. With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2016.
Lillooet has an estimated trading area of 5,000. The regional population includes that of the three large bands of the St'at'imc or Lillooet Nation whose reserves abut the town on all sides, and another three large reserves within ; 430 of the District of Lillooet's population are aboriginal. Historical populations have included large numbers of Americans and Chinese, although there are few of either today (although many longtime local families, First Nations and non-First Nations, have some bloodlines from both). The town's non-native population has been historically multi-ethnic in extraction, with a relatively high-rate of intermarriage between all groups.
Economy.
Its economy was historically based around logging, the railway, ranching, farming, and government services. The town has had several booms and busts, relying on forestry since the mid-1970s although previous booms were connected with Fraser Canyon and Cariboo Gold Rushes, the building of the Lillooet Cattle Trail, another gold rush adjacent to town in the 1880s and another nearby in the Pacific Great Eastern Railway, and spinoffs from the development of the Bridge River goldfields from the 1910s onwards. Lillooet's economy also boomed in the 1940s and 50s during the construction of the Bridge River Power Project, which includes a dam, canal and powerhouse on the outskirts of town.
A new industry emerging in the area is wine, which was eyed early on by an Italian named Savona, for whom the town of Savona is named. His original vines were in the area of Fountain and were the first attempt at commercial wine-growing in British Columbia. Fort Berens Winery, located in East Lillooet across the Fraser from the main town, is a relatively new venture but has won several awards. A new winery at Cedar Falls, near Texas Creek about 20 km south of town on the west side of the Fraser, has been doing test plantations and will be commercially producing soon.
Education.
Lillooet has one high school, Lillooet Secondary, which also serves students from rural localities outside the town such as Shalalth, Seton Portage, Gold Bridge and Bralorne although those communities do offer students a Secondary School program. Cayoosh Elementary School is located in the Cayoosh Heights subdivision and George M. Murray Elementary serves those in North Lillooet. The Upper St'at'imc Culture, Language and Education Society (USCLES) operates education programs, but most St'at'imc children attend the public school system. Post-secondary programs are offered by Thompson Rivers University located at 155 Main Street. The Fountainview Academy Association operates Fountainview Academy, an international private school, which offers work-study experience that includes organic farming, and is about 24 km south of Lillooet on British Columbia Highway 12.


Thomas Ashton (trade unionist)

Thomas Ashton (23 March 1844 – 12 October 1927) was a British trade unionist.
Born in Openshaw, Ashton worked as a coal miner from the age of 12, and in 1865 became secretary of the Bradford and Clayton miners' lodge. This dissolved two years later, but Ashton re-established it in 1873, facing victimisation, but also being elected as checkweighman. He subsequently led the formation of the Lancashire and Cheshire Miners' Federation, and was its secretary from 1881.
Ashton next worked with Ben Pickard to establish the Miners' Federation of Great Britain, and he was appointed as its first secretary. Although he personally supported the Conservative Party, he did not attempt to influence the union's political views, which initially followed Pickard's liberalism. He also worked with Pickard to establish the Miners' International Federation, and was its secretary from 1890 until 1914.
In 1917, Ashton was appointed to the Privy Council. He retired from all his union posts in 1919.


Empire Mine State Historic Park

Empire Mine State Historic Park is a state-protected mine and park in the Sierra Nevada mountains in Grass Valley, California, U.S. The Empire Mine is on the National Register of Historic Places, a federal Historic District, and a California Historical Landmark. Since 1975 California State Parks has administered and maintained the mine as a historic site. The Empire Mine is "one of the oldest, largest, deepest, longest and richest gold mines in California". Between 1850 and its closure in 1956, the Empire Mine produced 5.8 million ounces of gold, extracted from of underground passages.
History.
In October 1850, George Roberts discovered gold in a quartz outcrop on Ophir Hill, but sold the claim in 1851 to Woodbury, Parks and Co. for $350 (or about $ today, adjusted for inflation). The Woodbury Company consolidated several local claims into the Ophir Hill Mine, but they mismanaged their finances and in 1852 were forced to sell the business at auction. It was purchased by John P. Rush and the Empire Quartz Hill Co. The Empire Mining Co. was incorporated in 1854, after John Rush was bought out. As word spread that hard rock gold had been found in California, miners from the tin and copper mines of Cornwall, England, arrived to share their experience and expertise in hard rock mining. Particularly important was the Cornish contribution of the Cornish engine, operated on steam, which emptied the depths of the mine of its constant water seepage at a rate of per day. This enabled increased productivity and expansion underground. Starting in 1895, Lester Allan Pelton's water wheel provided electric power for the mine and stamp mill. The Cornish provided the bulk of the labor force from the late 1870s until the mine's closure eighty years later.
William Bowers Bourn acquired control of the company in 1869. Bourn died in 1874, and his estate ran the mine, abandoning the Ophir vein for the Rich Hill in 1878. Bourn's son, William Bowers Bourn II, formed the Original Empire Co. in 1878, took over the assets of the Empire Mining Co., and continued work on the Ophir vein after it was bottomed out at and allowed to fill with water. With his financial backing, and after 1887, the mining knowledge and management of his younger cousin George W. Starr, the Empire Mine became famous for its mining technology. Bourn purchased the North Star Mine in 1884, turning it into a major producer, and then sold it to James D. Hague in 1887, along with controlling interest in the Empire a year later.
Bourn reacquired control of the Empire Mine in 1896, forming the Empire Mines and Investment Co. In 1897, he commissioned Willis Polk to design the "Cottage", using waste rock from the mine. The "Cottage" included a greenhouse, gardens, fountains and a reflecting pool. Between 1898 and 1905, a clubhouse with tennis courts, bowling alley and squash courts were built nearby.
The Empire Mine installed a cyanide plant in 1910, which was an easier gold recovery process than chlorination. In 1915, Bourn acquired the Pennsylvania Mining Co., and the Work Your Own Diggings Co., neighboring mines, which gave the Empire Mines and Investment Co. access to the Pennsylvania vein. The North Star also had some rights to that vein, but both companies compromised and made an adjustment.
In 1928, at the recommendation of Fred Searls of Nevada City, Newmont Mining Corp. purchased the Empire Mine from Bourn. Newmont also purchased the North Star Mine, resulting in Empire-Star Mines, Ltd. The business was managed by Fred Nobs and later by Jack Mann.
Gold mines were defined as "nonessential industry to the war effort" by the War Production Board of the US Government on 8 October 1942, which shut down operations until 30 June 1945. After the war, a shortage of skilled miners forced the suspension of operations below the 4,600-foot level by 1951.
By the 1950s inflation costs for gold mining were leaving the operation unprofitable. In 1956 a crippling miners' strike over falling wages ended operations. Ellsworth Bennett, a 1910 graduate of the Mackay School of Mines in Reno was the last "Cap'n" (Superintendent) of the Empire, and the only person from management allowed across the picket line (the miners' lives depended on his engineering skills and they worked as a team). Bennett oversaw the closing of the Empire on May 28, 1957 when the last Cornish water pumps were shut and removed. In its final year of operation in 1956, the Empire Mine had reached an incline depth of .
In 1974 California State Parks purchased the Empire Mine surface property for $1.25 million ($ million today), to create a state historic park. The state park now contains , including forested backcountry. Newmont Mining retained the mineral rights to the Empire Mine, and 47 acres, if they decide to reopen the Empire Star Mines.
Geology.
A Granodiorite body long, north to south, and up to wide, underlies the district. This body intruded into surrounding metamorphic rocks. Gold ore deposits reside in the quartz veins, ranging from 3 to 7 ounces per ton. The Empire Vein outcrops to the east on a north-south strike, dipping at a 35-degree angle to the west. The vein was mined with inclined shafts following dip, with horizontal shafts (drifts) every along strike. The ore was mined by stoping.
Museum.
On weekends from May through October, volunteers dressed in Edwardian clothing give living history tours of the Bourn Cottage, the 1890s country estate home of William Bourn, Jr., and the Mineyard, with demonstrations of mine operations.
The park's museum contains a scale model of the underground workings of the Empire/Star mine complex, exhibits of ore samples from local mines, a recreated Assay Office and a collection of minerals. There are of gardens to tour.
The Sierra Gold Park Foundation (SGPF) provides the interpretive and educational goals of this state historic park through donations, visitor center sales, membership dues and special events. It has a very active volunteer group.


Hobet Coal Mine

The Hobet 21 Coal Mine in West Virginia was operational between 1974 and 2015. Straddling the border of Boone County and Lincoln County in the Appalachian Mountains, the Hobet 21 mine was one of the largest mountaintop-removal coal mining operations in West Virginia. Originally owned by Fil Nutter, the mine used both underground mining and strip mining techniques, and later even more intensive surface mining using a dragline. Increasing productivity and profitability encouraged workers to successfully strike for their health plan in 1993, which resulted in unusually thorough coverage for mine workers at this time. The Hobet mine was incorporated into Arch Coal in 1997, along with several other mines, following booming coal demand. The mine was sold two more times: to Magnum Coal in 2005 and to Patriot Coal in 2008. Patriot Coal subsequently went bankrupt in 2015, and the Hobet site was passed into a Virginia-based conservation firm who continued to mine the land while reclaiming and planting trees to offset carbon emissions for other companies.
The Hobet 21 Coal Mine site is currently defunct and in 2016, former West Virginia Governor Earl Ray Tomblin proposed developing the environmentally degraded former coal field. This residential, industrial and commercial development plan is intended to offset the economic impacts from the declining coal industry, but has been called "a long way from reality".
History.
General history.
Coal mining has been a primary industry of West Virginia since coal was first discovered in Boone County in 1742, by John Peter Salley. The Hobet 21 mine itself was not opened until 1974. The mine was a small, family business under its original owners, Fil Nutter and Granville Lee Linville. It was subsequently sold off four times, to Ashland Oil (1977), Arch Coal (1997), Magnum Coal (2005), and Patriot Coal (2008). Under the ownership of Ashland Oil, a new, more intensive form of mining using a dragline was introduced, which commenced operation in 1983 and doubled production. A highly successful business enterprise, Hobet coal reached its peak value in the early 2010s.
In 2014 the Virginia Conservation Legacy Fund reclaimed what was left of Patriot Coal. VCLF's ERP Compliant Fuels was granted rights for 150 mining permits across Appalachia in exchange for assuming responsibility of the $400 million worth of miner health care liabilities that Patriot Coal was previously responsible for.
Union.
Hobet miners were involved in the United Mine Workers' (UMW) selective strike in 1993, which included workers from five states. At the time, just 30% of mining was union protected, and miners struggled to maintain their power. Hobet's union ultimately accepted lower wages in exchange for an "exceptional" health plan. Another major UMW protest took place in 2015, at the Patriot Coal headquarters. Workers objected to the bankrupted Patriot's intentions to sell its assets to Blackhawk Mining, canceling contracts, benefits, and retiree pensions in the process. Patriot Coal claimed the miners would probably have job opportunities at Blackhawk, or with the conservation group, Virginia Conservation Legacy Fund, that is panning to restore former Hobet mine lands—but that was not guaranteed.
Environmental justice activism.
"The Last Mountain", a 2011 documentary about a neighboring Boone County coal mine, brought the broader area's struggle for environmental justice into the limelight. In 2012, a grassroots activist group called Radical Action for Mountain People's Survival (RAMPS), organized a protest in which some 50 people shut down the Hobet mine, resulting in 20 arrests. The protesters stood up against the environmental degradation taking place through mountaintop removal mining techniques, and were especially angry about effects on the health of nearby human populations. These low-income populations have been inundated with poisonous carcinogenic water and air pollution from the mine. A 2016 study found that populations in greater proximity to both present and past coal mining sites in Appalachia have greater exposure to environmental hazards. Because these areas are primarily low income, this is a form of environmental inequality.
Economics.
Output and employment.
In 1975, the Hobet mine produced less than 90,000 tons of coal. This number significantly increased to almost 500,000 tons three years later. At its peak in 2002, the mine produced 5 million tons of coal. Alongside the output of the mine, the number of employees increased as well. Employing less than 50 workers at its inception, the mine employed more than 200 by 1982. However, in 1993, in order to secure their health benefits, the workers went on strike from May to December. Both output and the number of workers plummeted, but they were restored in 1994 after the strike ended.
Bankruptcy.
With an increase in the availability of natural gas (due to hydraulic fracturing technologies), as well a rising use of renewable energy sources, world demand for coal is decreasing. From 2007 to 2016, U.S. fossil fuel consumption decreased by nearly one-third. In recent years, bankruptcy has become epidemic among United States coal companies. Patriot Coal, the owner of the mine at the time, announced its bankruptcy in 2012, resulting in the loss of health benefits for the miners. The company cited competition from natural gas, a weak economy, and regulations as the main factors of their bankruptcy. Patriot obtained bankruptcy financing and advice in order to survive. In August 2015, Patriot filed Chapter 11 with the Bankruptcy Court. In October 2015, a Virginia bankruptcy court approved the bankruptcy. The assets and liabilities previously owned by Patriot Coal were taken on by ERP Compliant Fuels, a subsidiary of the Virginia Conservation Legacy Fund.
Income demographics.
The communities surrounding the mine are primarily low-income areas. Boone County has a poverty rate of 23%, and a per-capita income of $21,387. Lincoln County's poverty rate is higher, at 28%, with a per-capita income of $19,114. This is compared to the national average poverty rate of 14%, and the national per-capita income of $29,979. Only 8.8% of Boone County residents and 10% of Lincoln County residents have a post-secondary education. In 2014 (before Patriot Coal went bankrupt) the mining industry made up 23% of industry in Boone County, and was the largest sector in the county.
Environmental and health impacts.
Environmental impacts.
Mountaintop removal causes multiple environmental problems including deforestation, decapitated peaks, significant carbon dioxide emissions, contamination of the air with sulfur, and biodiversity loss; but one of the most significant is the damage caused to waterways that support mountain ecosystems. Coal companies clear-cut the ecologically diverse forest and then use dynamite to remove mountaintops and pile the waste rock into mountain valleys, creating dams called valley fills. In particular, the Connelly Branch of the Mud River was nearly completely filled in. The Hobet mine has been operating in the Mud River watershed since the 1970s, and has been more destructive to the surrounding ecosystems than any other mine in Appalachia. More than 20 of these valley fills containing high levels of conductivity pollution—in conjunction with deforested mountainsides— contribute to significant toxic runoff, which contaminates the Mud River and its numerous tributaries many miles downstream from the mine site. Even though the mine is now closed, piles of spoil and valley fills are leaching a large quantity of selenium into the surrounding watershed. Nonetheless, in 2010, the EPA reported that the mine had satisfied the requirements given in the Clean Water Act.
The Obama-era Stream Protection Rule requires that landscapes affected by coal mining be restored to a condition in which it is capable of supporting the same ecosystem components and uses that the undisturbed land had previously supported. However, this rule was recently repealed, leaving restoration up to private interests. Government agency reclamation guidelines require former mine sites to be restored to the “approximate original contour” of the site, and replanted with biologically diverse fauna that provides comparable ecosystem services to those of the original landscape. Many companies interpret these guidelines as a call simply to bulldoze earth into place and reseed grass. Numerous reclaimed sites are now pastureland, and reforestation is rare due to this liberal interpretation of the law, as well as the fact that true ecological reclamation is very expensive. Much of the reclamation process that is done by mining companies uses crushed rock, and because this doesn’t absorb as much water as the topsoil that once covered the land, the flow of water runoff has increased during storms, washing away vegetation and soil. This is detrimental to the carbon and nitrogen cycles, impairing ecosystem function.
The EPA lists 110 separate organic pollutants and 14 metals/minerals as "priority pollutants" in relation to strip mining practices. Some of the pollutants on the list include: lead, mercury, arsenic, selenium, haloethers, nitrophenols, polychlorinated biphenyls, chlorobenzene, pthalate esters, nitrosamines, polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons.
Human health impacts.
In communities surrounding mountaintop removal sites, pollutants often leach into the groundwater. This groundwater contamination causes health concerns. There is a link to higher rates of disease near large-scale mining sites like Hobet mine, such as cancer and birth defects, decreased birth weight, diminished educational attainment, cardiac and pulmonary disease, and significantly decreased life expectancy.
The now-defunct mine site contains rubble and retaining ponds that are still producing toxic runoff. This polluted water is in danger of affecting tributaries of the Ohio river. A formerly lush ecosystem, the mine site requires many years of cleanup to become a healthful environment again.
While the communities surrounding coal mines are in danger from environmental pollution-related diseases and infrastructure failures such as the Elk River chemical spill of 2014, mine workers themselves also contend with elevated risks of physical injury, hearing loss, and black lung disease.
Future developments.
In 2016, then West Virginia Governor Earl Ray Tomblin proposed the development of a $140 million industrial site on the Hobet 21 site. The mountaintop removal site was selected for development for its close proximity to a four-lane highway and its relatively large size, which the governor's office cited as being important for the economic development of the area. Current Governor Jim Justice has stated that he supports going through the plan to develop the site. The proposed development plan has been controversial among environmentalist groups, as scientists have claimed that long-term pollution from the former coal operation will cause water quality problems for the users of the proposed development.
In 2015 the Sierra Club, the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, and West Virginia Highlands Conservancy filed a lawsuit against Patriot Coal Corporation, accusing the company of releasing pollutants into water systems in the surrounding area, in particular into the Mud River, which these groups claim has become "biologically impaired" by the Hobet 21 coal mining site. In 2016 a settlement was reached between the Sierra Club, the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, and the Virginia Conservation Legacy Fund (VCLF), which reclaimed the remains of Patriot Coal in the wake of Patriot Coal's 2015 bankruptcy. The settlement established a $6 million stream restoration and reforestation project that VCLF was made responsible for carrying out. VCLF assumed Patriot Coal's $400 million worth in worker's compensation liabilities and environmental restoration responsibilities in exchange for multiple mining complexes in West Virginia and several mining permits. Additionally, VCLF was granted a -year extension on the previously existing deadline to treat selenium water pollution, which was the subject of the 2015 lawsuit brought up against Patriot Coal. It was also agreed that the 2015 Clean Water Act conductivity pollution enforcement case was to be postponed as part of the settlement. Despite this, development of the Hobet site is being carried out. In 2016, The West Virginia Department of Transportation requested approval for the design and development of a 2.6-mile access road to the site. Construction is expected to begin in March 2017.
Tomblin named the project Rock Creek Development Park, and announced that the West Virginia National Guard will contribute to it. The Guard is expected to use the property to maintain national vehicles, train, and invest in agricultural needs such as planting apple trees and constructing greenhouses.


Erel Group

EREL LLC is a Mongolian company headquartered in Ulaanbaatar, active in mining and construction, established in 1989. Founder and current president is Badarchiin Erdenebat, also founder of the Motherland Party. Construction activities began in 1994. The company has 1,200 employees in more than 10 companies in industries ranging from geological exploration, mining, construction, construction materials manufacturing, road construction to banking and education sectors.
In 2000, Erel was the second largest gold mining company in Mongolia after Mongol Gazar, with a 1364 kg yearly output, amounting to 12.9% of the national production.
Erel's name is connected with the alleged failure to rehabilitate the ground after leaving their gold mining fields along the Ongi River in the early 1990s.


Kiriburu

Kiriburu is a census town in Jharkhand.
The town is mainly known for having big Iron-ore Mines KIOM (Kiriburu Iron-Ore Mine) & MIOM (Meghahatuburu Iron-Ore Mine)both governed by Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL). The road connecting the township to the mines is divided by the border of Odisha and Jharkhand. It is also a famous hill station situated in the core of Saranda forest. Saranda forest is land of seven hundred hills. The name of the forest Saranda is due to the large number of elephants found in this forest (saranda means elephants). The forest has some good water falls and hill views.
Overview.
The towns of Kiriburu and Meghahatuburu are contiguous, sharing many local facilities, although Kiriburu is in Jharkhand Pashchimi Singhbhum district. The official pin codes of Kiriburu and Meghahatuburu is 833222 And 833223 Most of the People work in SAIL Iron Ore Mines.
Demographics.
 India census, Kiriburu had a population of 9,545. Males constitute 52% of the population and females 48%. Kiriburu has an average literacy rate of 67%, higher than the national average of 59.5%: male literacy is 76%, and female literacy is 57%. In Kiriburu, 14% of the population is under 6 years of age, set by sharma. The local inhabitants are known as Ho people. It is also located in the maoists belt.
Kiriburu is easily accessible and is connected to various important places. The road from Kiriburu to Jamshedpur and Ranchi has been upgraded by the iron companies. The other route is to Orissa (Barbil) and Manoharpur station. It can be reached from Tatanagar by road or by rail, the nearest railway station being Barajamda, 24 km away. Mining town of Barbil in the Keonjhar District of Orissa is 28 km from Meghahataburu by road. Direct Train - Jan Shatabdi- from Howrah (West Bengal) is available up to Barbil, from where you can catch hired taxis / SAIL Company bus to Kiriburu or Meghahatuburu.
Kiriburu is a good place to see nature full of forests and vegetation, and the weather is usually good. It is a place usually compared to Shimla and Cherapuji. In a year there is 200 cm(approx) of rain in Kiriburu. In Meghahatuburu, there is a guest house in a corner of the town, from there you can see a beautiful view of 700 mountains, and in the evening there is a sunset that gives the heart touch view, which is a great attraction of Meghahatuburu.
There are no colleges in there but there are mainly two schools, Project Central School in Kiriburu and Kendriya Vidyalaya in Meghahataburu. Both are C.B.S.E boards and till class 12th and offer subjects like science, arts, and commerce (K.V). Students usually rely on school and personal coaching for study. Both the schools have big playgrounds as per city standards and allows games like cricket, Football, Handball and various local games.


Wardha Valley Coalfield

Wardha Valley Coalfield is located mainly in Chandrapur district in the Vidarbha region of the Indian state of Maharashtra.
The coalfield.
Wardha Valley Coalfied covers an area of about 4,130 km2 in the valley of the Wardha, a river in the Godavari basin. It extends in a North West – South East direction for about 115 km. Wardha Valley Coalfield is spread across Bhandar, new majri, Rajur-wani, Chandrapur, Balalarpur and Wamanpalli.
Challenges.
Wardha Valley Coalfield mines coal in a large measure by open cast mining. However, the availability of coal comparatively near to the surface is fast depleting. As a result, either the open cast mines have to be deepened or the costlier underground mining process resorted to.
Reserves.
Coal-bearing areas in India are divided into two groups – Gondwana measures and tertiary measures. Gondwana coals occur in valleys of rivers such as Damodar, Mahanadi, Godavari and Wardha. Tertiary coals are found in Assam and the lignite occurring areas.
According to the Geological Survey of India, Wardha Valley Coalfield has total reserves of 5,343.60 million tonnes of non-coking coal, up to a depth of 1,200 m, out of which 2,783.51 million tonnes are proved reserves and the rest being indicated or inferred. Bulk of the coal lies up to a depth of 300 m.


Hyesan mine

The Hyesan mine is one of the largest silver mines in North Korea and in the world. The mine is located in the north of the country in Ryanggang Province. The mine has estimated reserves of 3.07 million oz of gold and 921.6 million oz of silver. The mine also has reserves amounting to 160 million tonnes of ore grading 0.35% copper, 3.2% lead and 3.6% zinc .


Donja Ljubata mine

The Donja Ljubata mine is one of the largest graphite mines in Serbia. The mine is located in Donja Ljubata in Pčinja District. The mine has reserves amounting to 5.88 million tonnes of ore grading 3.4% graphite metal.


Zamitsa diamond mine

The Zamitsa mine is one of the largest diamond mines in Russia and in the world. The mine is located in the north-eastern part of the country in the Sakha Republic. The mine has estimated reserves of 52 million carats of diamonds and an annual production capacity of 0.2 million carats.


Easthouses

Easthouses is a settlement in Midlothian, Scotland, lying to the east of Newtongrange and south of Dalkeith. It forms the northern extension of the settlement of Mayfield, with which it is closely associated; the two communities have a combined population of around 7,900.
Primarily based on public housing, Easthouses developed in the 1920s to accommodate miners for the nearby Easthouses Colliery, many of whom relocated from the west of Scotland. The settlement was significantly extended in the 1950s. Employment has diversified since the closure of local mines, with many of the population now commuting to Edinburgh.
The Easthouses Parish Church (built 1954) is of minor architectural interest.


Queensland Alumina Limited

Queensland Alumina Limited (QAL) is one of the largest alumina refineries by alumina production capacity in the world, located in Parsons Point, Gladstone, Queensland, Australia.
The refinery was planned in 1964 and has been operating since 1967, the refinery has a capacity to produce 3.95 million tonnes of alumina a year. In 1981 the output was at a quarterly basis over 600,000 tonnes per quarter.
At times of lower demand, operations have been altered. Subsequent rises in demand have seen expansion in output and employment.
QAL has been operated by a range of consortium partners of international aluminium producers over time. Comalco brought in to the consortium in 1969. In 1982 it was owned Comalco (30.3%), Kaiser Aluminum (28.3%), Alcan (21.4%), and Pechiney Ugine Kuhlmann (20%).
Since April 2005, it has been owned by Rio Tinto Alcan (80%) and Rusal (20%). In September 2017 the QAL celebrated 50 years of operation.


Thomas Cann

Thomas Henry Cann (14 June 1858–6 May 1924), often known as T. H. Cann, was a British trade unionist.
Cann was born in Cornwall, where he became a tin miner. In search of work, he moved to Brotton in Yorkshire, where he mined ironstone, then to Michigan. However, he was concerned at the dangerous conditions there, and returned to Brotton, where he worked until the mine closed. He then moved to the Handen Hold Colliery.
During his time at Handen Hold, Cann became an active trade unionist, and became well-known after opposing attempted intimidation at the Castle Eden Colliery. This led to his election to the executive of the Durham Miners' Association, and in 1896, he became its treasurer. He was also elected as an agent, and in 1915, he became the union's general secretary. He died in 1924, still in office.


Olekma mine

The Olekma mine is a large iron mine located in southern Russia in the Zabaykalsky Krai. Olekma represents one of the largest iron ore reserves in Russia and in the world having estimated reserves of 4 billion tonnes of ore grading 30% iron metal.


Frank Liddell (footballer)

Frank Liddell (born 10 July 1953) is a Scottish former professional footballer who played as a centre-back.
Early life.
Liddell was born in Stirling, and grew up in the village of Fallin.
Career.
After playing for Dunipace, he joined Alloa Athletic in 1975, where he played part time whilst working as a miner, and was part of the team that finished second in the 1976–77 Scottish Second Division and won promotion to the Scottish First Division. Having recently taken up a job as an inspector at an aluminium plant, he instead became a full-time footballer by signing for Scottish Premier Division side Heart of Midlothian for a fee of £15,000. After they were relegated in the 1978–79 season to the Scottish First Division, he scored their title-winning goal in the 1979–80 season against Airdrieonians on 30 April 1980 as they were promoted back to the first tier.
He left to join Brisbane City in the 1981–82 season, before returning to Scotland and having spells at Dunfermline Athletic, Stenhousemuir, St Johnstone. He returned to Brisbane City in 1986, where he would finish his career.
Personal life.
Since retiring from professional football, Liddell has remained in Brisbane and has become a financial advisor.


Tugnui coal mine

The Tugnui Coal Mine is a coal mine located in Buryatia. The mine has coal reserves amounting to 301 million tonnes of coking coal, one of the largest coal reserves in Russia and the world and has an annual production of 5.8 million tonnes of coal.


Sarycheku mine

The Sarycheku mine is a large copper mine located in the east of Uzbekistan in Tashkent Province. Sarycheku represents one of the largest copper reserve in Uzbekistan and in the world having estimated reserves of 200 million tonnes of ore grading 0.5% copper and 0.64 million oz of gold.


Thomas Waterland

Thomas Manville Waterland (born December 15, 1933) was a mining engineer and political figure in British Columbia. He represented Yale-Lillooet in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia from 1975 to 1986 as a Social Credit member.
He was born in Anyox, British Columbia, the son of Tilmer Manville Waterland and Jessica Kelley. In 1956, he married Donelda Catherine Stewart. Waterland lived in Saanichton. He served in the provincial cabinet as Minister of Mines and Petroleum Resource, as Minister of Forests and as Minister of Agriculture. Waterland resigned as Minister of Forests in 1986 after it was disclosed that he had invested in a tax shelter associated with a pulp mill company. He served as president of the Mining Association of B.C. from 1986 to 1993.


Uranium mining in the United States

Uranium mining in the United States produced of U3O8 in 2019, 88% lower than the 2018 production of of U3O8 and the lowest US annual production since 1948. The 2019 production represents 0.3% of the anticipated uranium fuel requirements of the US's nuclear power reactors for the year.
Production came from five in-situ leaching plants in Nebraska and Wyoming (Crow Butte, Lost Creek Project, Ross CPP, North Butte, and Smith Ranch-Highland), and one underground mine.
From 1949 to 2019, total US production of uranium oxide (U3O8) was 979.9 million pounds (444,500 tonnes).
History.
While uranium is used primarily for nuclear power, uranium mining had its roots in the production of radium-bearing ore from 1898 from the mining of uranium-vanadium
sandstone deposits in western Colorado. The 1950s saw a boom in uranium mining in the western U.S., spurred by the fortunes made by prospectors such as Charlie Steen. The United States was the world's leading producer of uranium from 1953 until 1980. In 1980 annual U.S. production peaked at 43.7 million pounds of U3O8. Until the early 1980s, there were active uranium mines in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.
Price declines in the late 1970s and early 1980s forced the closure of numerous mines. Most uranium ore in the United States comes from deposits in sandstone, which tend to be of lower grade than those of Australia and Canada. Because of the lower grade, many uranium deposits in the United States became uneconomic when the price of uranium declined sharply in the late 1970s. By 2001, there were only three operating uranium mines (all in-situ leaching operations) in the United States. Annual production reached a low of 779 metric tons of uranium oxide in 2003, but then more than doubled in three years to 1672 metric tons in 2006, from 10 mines. The U.S. DOE's Energy Information Administration reported that 90% of U.S. uranium production in 2006 came from in-situ leaching.
The average spot price of uranium oxide (U3O8) increased from $7.92 per pound in 2001 to $39.48 per pound ($/kg) in 2006. In 2011 the United States mined 9% of the uranium consumed by its nuclear power plants. The remainder was imported, principally from Russia and Kazakhstan (38%), Canada, and Australia. Although uranium production has declined to low levels, the United States has the fourth-largest uranium resource in the world, behind Australia, Canada, and Kazakhstan. United States uranium reserves are strongly dependent on price. At $50 per pound U3O8, reserves are estimated to be 539 million pounds; however, at a price of $100 per pound, reserves are an estimated 1227 million pounds. Rising uranium prices since 2001 have increased interest in uranium mining in Arizona, Colorado, Texas and Utah. The states with the largest known uranium ore reserves (not counting byproduct uranium from phosphate) are (in order) Wyoming, New Mexico, and Colorado.
The radiation hazards of uranium mining and milling were not appreciated in the early years, resulting in workers being exposed to high levels of radiation. Inhalation of radon gas caused sharp increases in lung cancers among underground uranium miners employed in the 1940s and 1950s. In 1950, the US Public Health service began a comprehensive study of uranium miners, leading to the first publication of a statistical correlation between cancer and uranium mining, released in 1962. In 1969, the federal government regulated the standard amount of radon in mines.
In 1990, Congress passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), granting compensation for those affected by mining. Out of 50 present and former uranium milling sites in 12 states, 24 have been abandoned and are the responsibility of the US Department of Energy.
By state.
Alabama.
Uranium in Alabama is found in the Coosa Block of the Northern Alabama Piedmont. Metamorphic uranium occurrences have been found in the Higgins Ferry Group in Coosa and Clay Counties. Some exploration has been done, but no economic deposits have been found to date.
Alaska.
Uranium was discovered at the Ross-Adams deposit in 1955 by an airborne gamma radiation survey. The deposit is at Bokan Mountain on Prince of Wales Island. The principal ore mineral is uranothorite, which occurs in veinlets in granite. Accessory minerals are primarily hematite and calcite, with lesser amounts of fluorite, pyrite, galena, quartz, and rare earth minerals. The first mining was done in 1957, when ore was removed from an open pit wide, long, and deep. Additional mining took place in 1959–1964 and 1970–1971. A total of 1.3 million pounds (590 t) of uranium was produced, with milling taking place in Washington and Utah.
Arizona.
Uranium mining in Arizona has taken place since 1918. Prior to the uranium boom of the late 1940s, uranium in Arizona was a byproduct of vanadium mining of the mineral carnotite.
California.
Uranium was discovered in 1954 in the Sierra Nevada of Kern County, along the Kern River about northeast of Bakersfield. Two mines, the Kergon mine and the Miracle mine, made small shipments in 1954 and 1955. Uranium occurs as uraninite and autunite in shear zones in granodiorite. Accessory minerals include fluorite and the molybdenum minerals ilsemanite and jordisite.
Colorado.
The first uranium identified in the US was pitchblende from the Wood gold mine at Central City, Colorado in 1871. Uranium mining in southwest Colorado goes back to 1898. The Uravan district of Colorado and Utah supplied about half the world's radium from 1910 to 1922, and vanadium and uranium were byproducts. The last producing uranium mine in the state, the Topaz Mine, part of the Sunday Complex near Uravan, Colorado, was closed down on March 18, 2009 by then owner Denison Mines due to depressed uranium prices.
Florida.
The Central Florida (Bone Valley) phosphorite deposits are considered to contain the largest known uranium resource (one million metric tons of uranium oxide) in North America (but note that "resources" are not the same as "ore reserves"). Uranium has been produced as a byproduct of phosphate mining and the production of phosphoric acid fertilizer. The uranium is contained in the phosphate minerals francolite, crandallite, millisite, wavellite, and vivianite, found in Miocene and Pliocene sediments of the Bone Valley Formation. The average uranium content is 0.009%, which is considered to be low grade. Concentrations of uranium in this type of deposit typically grade to 0.01–0.015% U3O8. Recovery process costs are estimated at $22 to $54 per pound of U3O8; higher than the market price of uranium during the 25-year period spanning the 1980s through the early first decade of the 21st century. Consequently, uranium recovery from Florida phosphate ceased in 1998.
Idaho.
From 1955 to 1960, uranium was extracted from placer black sand deposits derived from the Idaho Batholith in southwest Idaho. The deposits were mined for uranium, thorium, and rare earths. Uranium and thorium were in the monazite grains; rare earths were in columbite and euxenite. Production was 365,000 pounds (165 metric tons) of U3O8.
Uranium was mined at the Stanley district in Custer County, Idaho from 1957 to 1962. Deposits occur as veins in granite of the Cretaceous Idaho Batholith, and in strataform deposits in possibly Paleocene arkosic conglomerates and sandstones between the underlying Idaho Batholith and overlying Challis Volcanic Group (Eocene). The USGS has estimated production to be less than 170,000 pounds (78 metric tons) of U3O8.
Nebraska.
The only operating uranium mine in Nebraska is the Crow Butte mine, operated by Cameco. The mine is five miles (8 km) southeast of Crawford in Dawes County, western Nebraska. The roll-front deposit in the Oligocene Chadron formation was discovered in 1980 by Wyoming Fuel Co. Commercial operation began in 1991. Uranium is mined by in-situ leaching which involves the extraction by boreholes of uranium-bearing (U3O8) water, which is then filtered through resin beads. Through an ion exchange process, the resin beads attract uranium from the solution. Uranium loaded resins are then transported to a processing plant, where U3O8 is separated from the resin beads and yellowcake is produced. The resin beads are returned to the ion exchange facility where they are reused.
Nevada.
There is no current uranium production from Nevada. The largest past-producer was the Apex mine (also called Rundberg or Early Day mine), three miles south of Austin, in Lander County. Discovered in September 1953, it was first mined as a silver deposit and produced 45 metric tons of U3O8 (80% of Nevada's historical production) from 1954 until 1966, from a small open pit and from underground. Ore was shipped to Utah and to Lakeview, Oregon for processing. Uranium occurs as the secondary minerals autunite and meta-autunite after uraninite and coffinite in fractured Cambrian metamorphosed shales and quartzite, at or near the contact with Jurassic porphyritic quartz monzonite. The Apex-Lowboy deposit has an inferred resource of 615,000 metric tons at a grade of 0.07% U3O8.
The McDermitt Caldera in Humboldt County was the site of intensive uranium exploration in the late 1970s. In 2006 and 2007, Western Uranium Corporation drilled exploratory boreholes in the Kings Valley area.
New Jersey.
A uranium exploration project in northern New Jersey was halted in 1980 when the local government passed an ordinance preventing uranium mining.
New Mexico.
New Mexico was a significant uranium producer since the discovery of uranium by Navajo sheepherder Paddy Martinez in 1950. Uranium in New Mexico is almost all in the Grants mineral belt, along the south margin of the San Juan Basin in McKinley and Cibola counties, in the northwest part of the state. No mining has been done since 2002, even though the state has second-largest known uranium ore reserves in the US.
North Dakota.
Some lignite coal in southwest North Dakota contains economic quantities of uranium. From 1965 to 1967 Union Carbide operated a mill near Belfield in Stark County to burn uraniferous lignite and extract uranium from the ash. The plant produced about 150 metric tons of U3O8 before shutting down.
Oklahoma.
A small amount of uranium ore was mined in the mid-1950s from a surface exposure at Cement in Caddo County. The uranium occurred as carnotite and tyuyamunite in fracture fillings in the Rush Springs Sandstone over the Cement anticline, where the sandstone is bleached. The mined area was long, wide, and extended below ground surface.
Oregon.
Uranium was discovered in Oregon in 1955, 20 miles northwest of Lakeview in Lake County. The White King mine and the Lucky Lass mine shipped uranium from 1955 until 1965. At the White King mine, uranium was mined by both underground and open-pit methods from a low-temperature hydrothermal deposit in Pliocene volcanic rocks, associated with opal, realgar, stibnite, cinnabar, and pyrite. At the Lucky Lass mine ore was mined from an open pit. Uranium occurs in uraninite and autunite in lenses near or in a fault zone in tuffs. The mines fed the Lakeview Mining Company uranium mill.
A minor amount of uranium was mined in 1960 from a deposit at Bear Creek Butte in Crook County. The uranium was present as autunite at the contact between a rhyolite dike and tuffs of the Oligocene-Miocene John Day Formation.
The McDermitt Caldera in Malheur County was the site of intense uranium exploration in the late 1970s. In 2012, Portland-based Oregon Energy was planning development of the Aurora deposit, near McDermitt. In December 2013, Oregon Energy notified the NRC that the project was "on ice" because of the Sage Grouse issue and uranium pricing.
Pennsylvania.
The uranium mineral autunite was reported in 1874 near the town of Mauch Chunk (present-day Jim Thorpe) in Carbon County, eastern Pennsylvania. A small amount of test mining was done in 1953 at the Mount Pisgah deposit near Jim Thorpe. The uranium at the Mount Pisgah deposit is primarily in an unidentified black mineral in pods and rolls in the basal conglomerate of the Mauch Chunk Formation (Mississippian). Also present are the secondary uranium and uranium-vanadium minerals carnotite, tyuyamunite, liebigite, uranophane, and betauranophane.
South Dakota.
Uranium was discovered near Edgemont, South Dakota in 1951, quickly followed by mining. The uranium occurs in Cretaceous sandstones of the Inyan Kara group, where it outcrops along the southern edge of the Black Hills in Fall River County, South Dakota. Minerals in unoxidized sandstone are uraninite and coffinite; minerals in oxidized zones include carnotite and tyuyamunite.
An airborne gamma radiation survey flown by the US Atomic Energy Commission in 1954 discovered high radiation readings over the Cave Hills area in Harding County, in the northwest corner of the state. High winds blew the reconnaissance flight off their planned survey route over the Slim Buttes twenty miles southeast of the North Cave Hills. Claims were immediately staked over uranium-bearing lignite beds in the area. The lignite was strip-mined, probably starting that same year, and continuing until the mines closed in 1964.
No uranium is currently mined in South Dakota.
In January 2007 Powertech Uranium Corporation received a state permit to drill boreholes to evaluate their Dewey-Burdock project, in Custer and Fall River counties northwest of Edgemont. Previous work at the property in the early 1980s defined a resource of 10 million pounds (4500 metric tons) of uranium, of which 5 million pounds (2300 metric tons) were estimated recoverable by conventional underground mining. Powertech hoped to bring the property into production as an in-situ leaching mine in 2009.
A campaign has been underway to halt any effort to mine uranium in the Black Hills because of its effect on Native American and wildlife populations, as well as the effects of mining on the water table and local ranchers. Indigenous leaders and anti-nuclear activists began organizing around this issue in the 1970s and there are still efforts underway to prevent mining on native lands.
Texas.
The uranium district of south Texas was discovered by accident in 1954 by an airborne gamma radiation survey looking for petroleum deposits. The coastal plain had previously been regarded as highly unfavorable for uranium deposits. The uranium occurs in roll-front type deposits in sandstones of Eocene, Oligocene and Miocene age. The deposits are distributed along about of coastal plain, from Panna Maria in the north, south into Mexico. Uranium production began in 1958, from open-pit and in situ leach mines.
Uranium production stopped in 1999, but restarted in 2004. By 2006, three mines were active: Kingsville Dome in Kleberg County, the Vasquez mine in Duval County, and the Alta Mesa mine in Brooks County. 2007 production was 1.34 million pounds (607 metric tons) of U3O8. All have since closed.
Uranium Energy Corp. (UEC) began in-situ leach mining at its Palangana deposit (grading .135% U3O8) in Duval County in 2010. Uranium loaded resins from that ion exchange facility are processed into yellowcake at the company's Hobson processing plant. In late 2012, UEC completed the permitting and approval process for the Goliad ISR mining and ion exchange facility in Goliad County.
Utah.
Mining of uranium-vanadium ore in southeast Utah goes back to the late 19th century. All of Utah’s numerous uranium mines had closed by 1991 because of low prices. In late 2006, Denison Mines reopened the Pandora mine in the La Sal mining district, Utah's first producing uranium mine since 1991. In 2009 White Canyon Uranium opened the Daneros underground mine, west of Blanding, trucking ore to Denison's White Mesa Mill. In 2011 Denison took over White Canyon Uranium. In 2012 Energy Fuels Inc. acquired Denison's US assets, including the White Mesa Mill. In October 2012 the only operating uranium mines in Utah, the Pandora, Beaver and Daneros mines, were all placed on standby, care and maintenance due to the depressed uranium price.
The White Mesa Mill, miles south of Blanding, Utah, is the only operating conventional uranium (and vanadium) mill in the United States.
Virginia.
The largest deposit of uranium in the US is in Virginia at Coles Hill; however, the state's generous rainfall and occasional flooding (in contrast with typical American uranium mines in the dry and isolated desert southwest) have led to citizen concern about commercial-scale mining. Lawmakers in the state enacted a "de facto" ban on uranium mining in 1982. A 2015 federal court case involving the owners of Coles Hill upheld the ban.
Marline Uranium Corp. announced in July 1982 that it had discovered 110 million pounds (50,000 metric tons) of uranium in the Swanson/Coles Hill deposit, on land that it had leased near Chatham in Pittsylvania County. During the 1982 legislative session, the state of Virginia adopted laws to govern exploration for uranium in the Commonwealth. At the same time, the legislature imposed a moratorium on uranium mining in the state until such time that regulations to govern uranium mining could be enacted into law.
In 1981, the Virginia General Assembly approved House Joint Resolution No. 324, which directed the Virginia Coal and Energy Commission to evaluate the effects of uranium development on the Commonwealth and its citizens. The Virginia Coal and Energy Commission is a permanent legislative commission composed of five Senators, eight Delegates, and seven citizens appointed by the Governor.
The Commission completed its evaluation of uranium mining in October 1984 and concluded that the moratorium regarding uranium development could be lifted on the condition that certain specific recommendations derived from its work would be enacted into law.
Union Carbide was the joint venture partner on the project with Marline until early 1984 when it dropped its option on the property due to declining uranium prices. Marline kept the project on care and maintenance until 1990, when it dropped its remaining mineral leases and closed its local exploration office.
The deposits occur as breccia-fill and veins in gneiss bordering the Triassic Danville Basin. Ore minerals are coffinite, uraninite, and uranium-bearing apatite.
In October 2007, Walter Coles, who owns the land over the Coles Hill deposit, announced that he and some other landowners had formed Virginia Uranium Inc. to mine the deposit themselves, if it can be done safely. In November 2007, the state issued an exploration permit to Virginia Uranium, to allow drilling test holes into the deposit. Drilling began in mid-December.
The state-imposed moratorium on uranium mining is still in effect. A bill proposed in the state General Assembly in January 2008 would have created a Virginia Uranium Mining Commission to determine if uranium mining could be done in a manner protective of human health and the environment, and to recommend regulatory controls. The bill passed the Democratic controlled state Senate by a vote of 36–4. However, opponents of uranium mining succeeded in stopping the bill on March 3, 2008, when Rules Committee of the Republican controlled House of Delegates delayed consideration of the bill until 2009.
In November 2008, the Virginia Coal and Energy Commission voted unanimously to once again create a subcommittee to study the issue of uranium mining. In May 2009 the subcommittee approved a study of potential uranium mining and its safety and pollution issues. The study is expected to take about 18 months to complete.
In February 2010, the Commonwealth of Virginia contracted the National Research Council and Virginia Polytechnic Institute to oversee a National Research Council study of potential environmental and economic effects of uranium mining in Virginia. The National Research Council study, funded indirectly by a $1.4 million grant from Virginia Uranium to the Commonwealth, resulted in a report released in December 2011.
The report identified a range of health and environmental issues and related risks that could result from uranium mining in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The report found that although there are internationally accepted best practices to mitigate some risks, Virginia faces "steep hurdles" if it is to undertake uranium mining and processing within a regulatory setting that appropriately protects workers, the public, and the environment.
Uranium mining and processing carries with it a range of potential health risks to the people who work in or live near uranium mining and processing facilities. Some of these health risks apply to any type of hard rock mining or other large-scale industrial activity, but others are linked to exposure to radioactive materials. In addition, uranium mining has the potential to impact water, soil, and air quality, with the degree of impact depending on site-specific conditions, how early a contaminant release is detected by monitoring systems, and the effectiveness of mitigation steps.
Some of the worker and public health risks could be mitigated or better controlled through modern internationally accepted best practices, the report says. In addition, if uranium mining, processing, and reclamation were designed, constructed, operated, and monitored according to best practices, near-to-moderate-term environmental effects should be substantially reduced, the report found.
However, the report noted that Virginia's high water table and heavy rainfall differed from other parts of the United States—typically dry, Western states—where uranium mining has taken place. Consequently, federal agencies have little experience developing and applying laws and regulations in locations with abundant rainfall and groundwater, such as Virginia. Because of Virginia's moratorium on uranium mining, it has not been necessary for the Commonwealth's agencies to develop a regulatory program that is applicable to uranium mining, processing, and reclamation.
The report also noted the long-term environmental risks of uranium tailings, the solid waste left after processing. Tailings disposal sites represent potential sources of contamination for thousands of years. While it is likely that tailings impoundment sites would be safe for at least 200 years if designed and built according to modern best practices, the long-term risks of radioactive contaminant release are unknown.
The report's authoring committee was not asked to recommend whether uranium mining should be permitted, or to consider the potential benefits to the state were uranium mining to be pursued. It also was not asked to compare the relative risks of uranium mining to the mining of other fuels such as coal.
In October 2015, it went before a federal judge whether the 33-year-old ban on large-scale uranium mining in Virginia would be lifted.
 In June 2019, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that, in the absence of federal law establishing otherwise, "...[states retain] authority over the regulation of mining activities on private lands within their borders,” and therefore the state ban on uranium mining remains in place.
Washington.
Uranium was discovered at the Midnite Mine deposit on the Spokane Indian Reservation, Stevens County, north-east Washington in 1954. The deposit was mined from an open pit 1956–1962 and 1969–1982. Production through 1975 was 8 million pounds (3,600 metric tons) of U3O8. The uranium is contained in autunite, uraninite, and coffinite, with gangue minerals pyrite and marcasite. The ore occurs as disseminations, replacements, and stockworks in Precambrian metamorphic rocks of the Togo formation, in a roof pendant in Cretaceous porphyritic quartz monzonite.
Western Nuclear discovered the Spokane Mountain uranium deposit in 1975, two miles (3 km) northeast of the Midnite Mine, and in a similar geologic setting.
Other major Washington state uranium mines included the Sherwood mine, located five miles south of the Midnite mine, and the Daybreak mine, located six miles southeast of Elk, Washington. The Daybreak mine is recognized as the source of the finest museum-quality specimens of autunite and meta-autunite yet found. Sherwood had a co-located uranium mill, while Midnite and Daybreak ores were processed at the Dawn uranium mill, at Ford, Washington.
Wyoming.
Wyoming once had many operating uranium mines, and once had the largest known uranium ore reserves of any state in the U.S. The Wyoming uranium mining industry was hard-hit in the 1980s by the drop in the price of uranium. The uranium-mining boom town of Jeffrey City lost 95% of its population in three years. By 2020, the only active uranium mine in Wyoming was the Smith Ranch-Highland in-situ leaching operation in the Powder River Basin, owned by Cameco. The mine has produced 23 million pounds of uranium since it opened in 1975. Wellfield development was supended during 2016. The Measured and Indicated Resource is 24.9 million pounds of U3O8 at a grade of 0.06%.
Health and environmental issues.
The radiation hazards of uranium mining and milling were not appreciated in the early years, resulting in workers being exposed to high levels of radiation. Inhalation of radon gas caused sharp increases in lung cancers among underground uranium miners employed in the 1940s and 1950s. Risks related to the inhalation of radon gas and the deposition of radon daughter products in the lung were discussed publicly as early as 1951 in American newspapers. The hazard was considered to be generally greater in deeper underground workings, where providing adequate ventilation and suppressing dust was more difficult. Concerns for American miners' health were based on the observation of elevated lung cancer incidence among miners who mine uranium-bearing ore underground in Czechoslovakia and Germany.
Conventional uranium ore treatment mills create radioactive waste in the form of tailings, which contain uranium, radium, and polonium. Consequently, uranium mining results in "the unavoidable radioactive contamination of the environment by solid, liquid and gaseous wastes".
In the 1940s and 1950s, uranium mill tailings were released with impunity into water sources, and the radium leached from these tailings contaminated thousands of miles of the Colorado River system. Between 1966 and 1971, thousands of homes and commercial buildings in the Colorado Plateau region were "found to contain anomalously high concentrations of radon, after being built on uranium tailings taken from piles under the authority of the Atomic Energy Commission".
In 1950, the US Public Health service began a comprehensive study of uranium miners, leading to the first publication of a statistical correlation between cancer and uranium mining, released in 1962. The federal government eventually regulated the standard amount of radon in mines, setting the level at 0.3 WL on January 1, 1969.
Out of 50 present and former uranium milling sites in 12 states, 24 have been abandoned, and are the responsibility of the US Department of Energy. Accidental releases from uranium mills include the 1979 Church Rock uranium mill spill in New Mexico, called the largest accident of nuclear-related waste in US history, and the 1986 Sequoyah Corporation Fuels Release in Oklahoma.
In 1990, Congress passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), granting reparations for those affected by mining, with amendments passed in 2000 to address criticisms with the original act.
Uranium mining, milling and the American Southwest.
In the post-war period mine workers in the Four Corners area were exposed to and brought home large amounts of radiation in the form of dust on their clothing and skin. Epidemiologic studies of the families of these workers have shown increased incidents of radiation-induced cancers, miscarriages, cleft palates and other birth defects. The extent of these genetic effects on indigenous populations and the extent of DNA damage remains to be resolved.
Uranium mining, milling and the Navajo people.
After the end of World War II, large uranium deposits were found on and near the Navajo Reservation in the Southwest, and private companies hired many Navajo employees to work the mines. Disregarding the known health risks imposed by exposure to uranium, the private companies and the United States Atomic Energy Commission failed to inform the Navajo workers about the dangers and to regulate the mining to minimize contamination. As more data was collected, they were slow to take appropriate action for the workers.
Studies provided data to show that the Navajo mine workers and numerous families on the reservation have suffered high rates of disease from environmental contamination, but for decades, industry and the government failed to regulate or improve conditions, or inform workers of the dangers. As high rates of illness began to occur, workers were often unsuccessful in court cases seeking compensation, and the states at first did not officially recognize radon illness.
In 1990 the US Congress passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, to settle such cases and provide needed compensation. In 2008 the US Congress authorized a five-year, multi-agency cleanup of uranium contamination on the Navajo Nation reservation; identification and treatment of contaminated water and structures has been the first priority. Certain water sources have been closed, and numerous contaminated buildings have been taken down. By the summer of 2011, EPA had nearly completed the first major project of removal of 20,000 cubic yards of contaminated earth from the Skyline Mine area.