USW Warns Great Salt Lake Project Poses Environmental Dangers
A plan by the major mineral company, Great Salt Lake Minerals Corp., with ties to a Louisiana salt mine (North American Salt Co.), to expand its mineral extraction production at the Great Salt Lake, poses a threat to Utah’s Great Salt Lake ecosystem, says the United Steelworkers (USW).
North American Salt Co. also has a record of safety and health violations (enter Mine ID 1600358, to view violations) and unfair labor practices.
The plan by Great Salt Lake Minerals to add 91,000 acres of solar evaporative ponds will result in about 80,000 acres of “permanent adverse impacts to waters,” USW District 12 Director Robert LaVenture said in a letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Great Salt Lake Minerals, says LaVenture:
Has erroneously referred to their mineral extraction operations as “natural,” “environmentally responsible” and “green,” while failing to divulge the long-term ecological consequences on the Great Salt Lake watershed’s ecosystem.
USW says the health and safety track record of the firm’s parent company, Compass Minerals at its North American Salt’s mine operation in Cote Blanche, La., along with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s citations for serious violations at North American salt packaging plants in Wisconsin and Minnesota, should not be ignored.
From January 2009 through Aug. 8, 2012, the Mine Safety and Health Administration has cited North American Salt with more than 400 health and safety violations at the Cote Blanche mine, with 126 of these violations determined to be “significant and substantial.”
In addition, workers have been trying to negotiate a fair contract at Cote Blanche since 2010 but have been thwarted by the company’s unfair labor practices. An administrative law judge for the National Labor Relations Board determined the company committed numerous unfair labor practices by declaring impasse, refusing to bargain in good faith and unilaterally changing working terms and conditions beginning on March 31, 2010.
Although this recent history of violations of worker health and safety laws and labor law may not have a direct impact on Utahans or the Great Salt Lake, we believe these facts demonstrate a corporate culture of disdain for important federal laws.
