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STATEMENT OF LARRY MANN, GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS 

 REPRESENTATIVE, HOMESTAKE MINING COMPANY, LEAD, SD 



Mr. Mann. Thank you, Senator. And I do appreciate the opportu- 

 nity to testify in front of your Committee. 



I would like, first of all, to give you some perceptions that people 

 may have of the mining industry on both sides and then explain 

 how that ties into both small business and public lands. 



Homestake Mining Company — most people are familiar with ag- 

 riculture, timber, oil, and gas — produce what we think of as the 

 stuff of life. And I think unfortunately in these times society has 

 taken natural resource production for granted. We've lost a sense 

 that milk comes from cows. And that is something that you can see 

 being expanded across the Nation is the fact that we lose track of 

 where these things come from. Also, unfortunately most of the 

 public familiarity with mining focuses on our shortcomings, like 

 our comparisons to Summitville, CO, for instance, which even 

 South Dakota's Secretary of DENR, Robby Roberts, says won't 

 happen in South Dakota because we've got the kinds of rules and 

 regulations in place which prevent that. 



Acid rock drainage, which while certainly an undesirable situa- 

 tion in the mining industry, is technically manageable and being 

 managed now. We hear about the Migratory Bird Act, which we 

 along with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and State Game, Fish 

 and Parks met early in the spring to resolve those particular issues 

 and put a process in place to resolve them. Abandoned mine lands, 

 which is kind of a sexy issue which people talked about for the last 

 2 years. The South Dakota Mining Association, which includes Ho- 

 mestake Mining Company, has addressed on our own the issue of 

 abandoned mine lands in South Dakota and started to get that 

 process in place. We supported and were fortunate to help pass and 

 implement an abandoned mine lands law in South Dakota in the 

 last legislative session, and for whatever reason, we were not sup- 

 ported by the environmental community. 



Our industry also operates in a couple other climates. One, we 

 believe in very strict regulation with very stringent enforcernent, 

 and we support that. Unfortunately, we also operate in an environ- 

 ment which we believe is an orchestrated effort by the environmen- 

 tal extremists that you mentioned. Senator, to use hyperbole and 

 unsupported contention to create a sense of environmental hyste- 

 ria. We don't support that. 



Mining in South Dakota is conducted almost exclusively on pri- 

 vate land. And in Lawrence County, our total permitted mines use 

 up less than one-half of 1 percent of Lawrence County land mass. 

 And depending on how you calculate the acres in the Black Hills, 

 we're one 34 hundredth of the Black Hills. A section of land east of 

 the Missouri may support one family. A section of mining land in 

 the Black Hills can support 100 to 150 families. We produce several 

 thousand direct jobs, many indirect jobs. Most of those indirect jobs 

 are in the small business community. In 1992, the mining industry 

 purchased $73 million in services and supplies. Seventy-six percent 

 of that total, by one State commissioned study, was spent in South 

 Dakota with South Dakota businesspeople. Most of that $55 mil- 



