Rosemont Mine has responded to the film Cyanide Beach, created by the opponents to the mine, with a short video of their own. Rosemont released their film in response to what they call “a deliberate attempt by opponents to smear the leadership of Augusta Resource (Rosemont’s parent company), because they can’t attack Rosemont on the facts.”
Cyanide Beach was funded primarily FICO, a group of pecan growers and land developers in the battle over water in Southern Arizona, according to Rosemont. Rosemont’s response was funded solely by the company but has received the support of scientist Jonathan DuHamel.
In the film, produced by former reporter John Dougherty and his company Investigative Media, LLC, which has been described by Rosemont as a “pay-to-play” investigative media firm – that is paid to produce “damaging reports” at the request of their clients, specious connections are drawn between Rosemont Mine and a failed gold mining operation Italy.
According to scientist Jonathan DuHamel writer for the TucsonCitizen.com blog, “The film is a smear piece which attempts to associate directors of the Canadian mining company, Augusta Resource, the parent of Rosemont Copper, with environmental concerns in the Furtei mine in Italy. The implication of the film is that Rosemont cannot be trusted to be good environmental stewards of the land and in doing so, the film is very loose with the truth. The film attempts guilt by association, but as we shall see, Rosemont/Augusta had no association with the Furtei mine at the time it was abandoned.”
According to a statement released by Rosemont, “No one involved with Rosemont was involved with the Italian mine. Some members of Augusta’s Board of Directors were directors of another Canadian company, Sargold Resource Corporation. There is no logical, legal or credible means to link Rosemont or Rosemont’s parent, Augusta, to any issues with a mine in Italy. In fact, there’s no logical or credible reason to link a company that shared a number of board members with Augusta with the design or operation of the mine in Italy.
Pecan growers and land developers’ film is about the Furtei mine in Sardinia Italy. The Furtei mine was designed, built and operated by an Australian company, with no connection to Sargold (or Augusta). Furtei was operated by the Australian company for a number of years and then was decommissioned; Sargold never reopened the mine.
• In 2003, Sargold joined with the Italian government to purchase the closed Furtei mine in Sardinia.
• Sargold never mined at Furtei. They simply explored future mining opportunities and produced some gold from ore that had already been mined.
• Sargold concluded that future mining would require underground mining and therefore more capital – so Sargold merged into a larger mining company, Buffalo Gold, in 2007.
• Following the merger, the Sargold board left the company and had no further involvement.
• During the global economic collapse in 2008, Buffalo Gold went bankrupt. The mine has since faced a number of problems based upon the original design and operations.
Rosemont says that Augusta and Rosemont have never had anything to do with mining outside of the United States. They say that the Italian mine referenced in the film was an ongoing mine with environmental challenges for decades. Rosemont and Augusta had no role in designing, building or operating the Italian mine.
DuHamel writes that the “film Cyanide Beach was produced in 2012 when it seemed that Rosemont was well on its way to obtaining permits necessary to open a copper mine south of Tucson. Opponents of the mine were getting desperate.
Cyanide Beach is nothing but a smear job, an attempt at guilt by association. The very name of the film is provocative. Cyanide is a standard, widely used, chemical employed for recovery of gold. There is no link between the five Augusta directors and the fate of Buffalo Gold and the Furtei mine. It is also not valid to compare, by implication, the very stringent environmental requirements in the U.S. with those in Italy.”
Rosemont Copper response to Cyanide Beach: http://cyanidebeachtruth.com/