When appearing at Silver City town meetings for “direct and open dialogue” with the community, CMI’s CEO Corrado De Gasperis always seeks to reassure us that drilling in the town limits is temporary, and it’s merely an inconvenience that will soon be completed.

The Oxford Modern English Dictionary defines inconvenience as, “lack of suitability to personal requirements or ease,” and I certainly can agree with that. But in modern usage, when people think of inconvenience they most often do so in terms of limited, temporary problems like being stuck in a long line at MacDonald’s, encountering a street detour for sewer maintenance, or a freeway lane closure for new striping. In these situations, the inconvenience is temporary and relatively short term (except over US 80 in summer!), and there is finally a reward (however indirect) in the Big Mac, the functioning sewer, or more visible highway stripes.

The inconveniences of CMI drilling in Silver City include the constant noise, the dust, the scaring of the landscape and degradation of the view-shed. If these inconveniences were actually going lead to rewards for us and/or benefit the existing Silver City community, then they would be easier to live with. But what we face at the end of the drilling is the prospect of living with………………………….(wait for it, now!)……….more drilling, more excavation, bigger land scars: an operating open pit mine in town with a long lifetime. It would never be quiet here again.

I suggest that the CMI inconvenience is not of the type usually experienced in passing, a little speed bump in daily life to be endured for a few minutes. Beyond this CMI inconvenience is a looming disaster we will meet all too soon, if CMI plans materialize.  Mr. De Gasperis says that, “some of the residents are tense” at the prospect of mining in town (CEO Blog - April 6, 2011), but I would characterize the feeling of most residents (the 93 that signed the anti-mining petition) as anxious dread.  It’s like waiting for the Terminator to reappear.

Mr. De Gasperis says that,  “We strongly believe our presence in the area brings immediate benefits to the community. Our investments in land, infrastructure, people and the community have just begun. We place the highest priority on preserving (and restoring) the historical character of the Comstock while revitalizing and delivering commercial and economic benefits for the community (CEO Blog - April 6, 2011).”

In future entries, I want to examine in detail how these putative benefits would or could accrue to Silver City, a mostly residential community.