[Vision2020] Did Wenders and Harkins Enjoy Their Tenure?

[Mark Solomon]

Phil,

Somewhere we're having a disconnect on years. I 
don't have any of my resource materials at hand 
so I'm relying on my memory (always a dubious 
proposition) but if I'm remembering correctly the 
baghouse fire under Gulf Resources ownership was 
in 1974, the new smelter stacks were built in 
1980 (after Sen. McClure secured an amendment to 
the Clean Air Act exempting the stacks from 
normal permitting requirements) and were shut 
down along with the mine in 1982. Gulf Resources 
sold to Bunker Ltd Partnership (Magnuson, 
Hagadone, Simplot and Kendrick .. Kendrick was 
the former general manager of Bunker Hill) in 
1986(?) and then started moving their assets 
overseas buying New Zealand real estate to avoid 
superfund liability and pension/health care 
obligations to their work force.

While Gulf is the most recent criminal in this 
sordid tale, Bunker, Asarco, and Hecla were the 
big players and polluters for over a century 
knowingly killing an entire river ecosystem by 
dumping millions of tons of lead laden sediments 
into the S. Fk Coeur d'Alene River. Heck, they 
even had a line item in their budget as the Mine 
Owners
Association titled the "dead horse fund" to pay 
for livestock killed downstream. Bunker sold out 
to Gulf Resources at the same time that the 
nation adopted the Clean Water Act which would 
have required them to finally build the long 
known needed waste water settling/treatment ponds 
that would at least capture some portion of the 
heavy metals they were knowingly dumping into the 
river. And I mean knowingly for at least 50 years 
from the first investigative report calling for 
treatment ponds financed by that wild eyed 
radical organization - the Idaho Legislature.

I agree the Steelworkers were not the best 
representation for the miners in the Silver 
Valley, but the union busting wars that engulfed 
the silver Valley and the West for decades doomed 
local representation through the fledgling 
western mining unions. The best that could be had 
was the United Mine Workers out of the eastern 
coal fields and when that union collapsed along 
with the steel industry (another sordid tale of 
taking the money that should have been reinvested 
in new mills and instead putting it in 
shareholder pockets in the post WWII era enabling 
recovering overseas economies to take the lead in 
steel production) the Steelworkers were the only 
thing left for the underground miners of the 
C'dA. I can't remember when the representation 
went from UMW to the Steelworkers but I'm pretty 
sure it was after I moved here in 1976.

Mark

At 6:16 PM -0800 1/28/06, Phil Nisbet wrote:
>Mark
>
>You are moving forward several years from the 
>events I refer to.  The Bunker Hill Mine shut 
>down well before that.  You are thinking of the 
>attempt to re-open the mine by Gulf and Western 
>and their subsequent retreat overseas to avoid 
>CERCLA.  The Superfund action did not ocur while 
>Bunker Hill Mines was the operator.
>
>There has been questions for any number of years 
>in the what if catergory about the clean up 
>because had Bunker Hill still been an operating 
>mine it would have been similar to Doe Run, 
>still in operation and able to meet obligations 
>for clean up costs.  Now it is a no income 
>producing property that is a major drain on 
>clean up.
>
>If you will recall Mark, Bunker Hill went 
>bankrupt based on low lead prices and high 
>worker costs.  There was little or no silver 
>ever associated with the bunker Hill it was a 
>purely lead zinc play, though the richest of the 
>base metal deposits in the CDA District.  Many 
>people benefited from the bankruptcy sale, like 
>SVL Labs that picked off the labs owned by 
>Bunker Hill.  Gulf and Western picked off the 
>reserve base, but by that time the mine had 
>flooded and repairs were pretty pricey.  Now the 
>mine and smelter complex is owned by the EPA and 
>discharges the most lead of any of the place in 
>the complete District.
>
>If the Local had been able to cut wages by 20% 
>the Bunker Hill culd have kept its doors open 
>and made the two years it would have taken to 
>continue operations when lead and zinc came back 
>up in price.  Thats what Doe Run did in Missouri 
>and that made it possible for them to be paying 
>for the clean up rather than have the Tri-State 
>District be an orphaned site with no current 
>company support to pay for clean up.  Bunker 
>Hill opened the books to the Local and proved to 
>them that the cuts were required and the local 
>did concur.  But you might wish to recall that 
>the mine was a Steelworkers operation and they 
>were in huge disputes at the time back east.  I 
>can still remember the CDA paper being extremely 
>let down that fears of wage concessions in 
>Pittsburgh were going to sink the chance to 
>keeping the mines doors open.
>
>If you look at the reserve base at the Bunker 
>Hill, there are several billion dollars in zinc 
>rich ores there currently and with current 
>extremely high zinc prices, if it were in 
>operation, the net profits from that operation 
>could pay for the whole of the clean up of the 
>CDA district.  EPA as the owner, of course, is 
>not going to try to get resources out in order 
>to cover the costs, instead they are going after 
>the last remaining companies, burdening them 
>with a problem that was 75% caused by Bunker 
>Hill.
>
>We both agree that clean up needed to take place 
>and that the sins of the past had to be 
>corrected.  But you have to have somebody around 
>to pay for it, so bankrupting a company like 
>Bunker Hill is never a good solution.  And when 
>they closed shop in 1981 of seeing a working 
>clean up died.  With it died the jobs of well 
>over 400 workers.
>
>I have often wondered if an environmental 
>recievership similar to settlements done in 
>asbestos might not be a better solution than 
>closing down operations like the Bunker Hill. 
>Profit could then be focused for however long it 
>took to clean up.  Look at John Manville and the 
>fact that it was allowed to work its way to pay 
>off the needs to asbestos victims and is now 
>back on its feet and paying its share holders 
>again, with a full work force I might add.
>
>Phil Nisbet
>
>>From: Mark Solomon <msolomon at moscow.com>
>>To: "Phil Nisbet" <pcnisbet1 at hotmail.com>, nickgier at adelphia.net
>>CC: vision2020 at moscow.com
>>Subject: RE: [Vision2020] Did Wenders and Harkins Enjoy Their Tenure?
>>Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2006 17:08:00 -0800
>>
>>Phil,
>>
>>I can't speak to the issues in WA you refer to, 
>>but I can speak to the mines and mills closing 
>>in the Silver Valley. It had little to nothing 
>>to do with labor costs and everything to do 
>>with the company finally being held responsible 
>>for the deliberate emissions of lead pollution 
>>into the atmosphere and waters of the Silver 
>>Valley. That plus the bust in the price of 
>>silver after the failed attempt of the Hunt 
>>brothers of Texas fame to corner the world 
>>silver market.
>>
>>Mark Solomon
>>
>>At 3:38 PM -0800 1/28/06, Phil Nisbet wrote:
>>>Nick
>>>
>>>Heff was not saying that a Union was not a 
>>>good thing to have, just that free association 
>>>needs to be the law.  The closed shop of many 
>>>places actually is loaded with corruption and 
>>>nepotism and examples of National Unions 
>>>sticking it to the guys on the shop floor for 
>>>the sake of politics abound.
>>>
>>>One of my favorite examples was back in the 
>>>1980's when the guys in the Steelworkers local 
>>>at the Bunker Hill voted to accept lower wages 
>>>to keep the mine and their jobs going, but the 
>>>cal by the local was negated by the 
>>>International which lead to mine closure and 
>>>all of them losing their jobs.
>>>
>>>I still remember in the early 1990's guys 
>>>lobbying for the International working a deal 
>>>with Jolene Unsold that ended up closing the 
>>>doors on all the mill workers from Forks to 
>>>Vancouver.  The lobbyist for AFL-CIO sat in a 
>>>bar in DC telling a bunch of Union mill guys 
>>>that they should be happy with the Unions call 
>>>since it would mean better jobs for their 
>>>Union brothers back East, as it was a trade 
>>>off for Unsold's supporting an AFL-CIO bill on 
>>>health care benefits.  Bother that the guys 
>>>were losing their jobs and would not get any 
>>>benefits or a salary for that matter.
>>>
>>>Nothing in Idaho law makes a union illegal. 
>>>You have a union and that is why you are 
>>>bringing the suits you do in court for 
>>>teachers.  But I would point out that yours is 
>>>just one union. Technically, in a closed shop 
>>>state, the IEA could close your smaller union 
>>>down and shut it out.  You habe the right of 
>>>free association and to join what ever union 
>>>or no union at all here, so IEA does not have 
>>>the right to try to close the doors on your 
>>>union.
>>>
>>>You noted just how effective your AFT has been 
>>>even in an open shop environment.  The reason 
>>>it can be effective is that the Union has to 
>>>be responsive to its members or its members 
>>>will quit the Union.  That does not allow room 
>>>for feather bedding by top Union brass or for 
>>>the nepotism and cronyism that closed shop 
>>>areas have in abundance.  Instead, the Union 
>>>has to work for its keep and get members by 
>>>doing the job its supposed to do.
>>>
>>>Phil Nisbet
>>>
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>
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