“Dithering commissioners blow chance at $1.5 m yearly revenue”

That’s what the headline will read if Coos County commissioners don’t get on the ball and do something to secure the royalties from Oregon Resources’ chromite mining operations.

ORC has been plodding through the bureaucracy for over three years and still hasn’t got an up or down vote on whether they can mine land on which the county owns mineral rights. They haven’t even been able to get county officials to sit down and negotiate contract terms. The county just wants to send things for the lawyers to negotiate. Lawyers are never in a rush to conclude anything.

Meanwhile, ORC has had little difficulty securing rights from the private sector on similar terms to those offered the county. There are likely sufficient resources available for the project to proceed without the county. It is flat out irresponsible for the commissioners, one in particular, to keep throwing “red herrings” into the debate blocking progress on negotiations. 

Last week, a respected geologist hired by the commission told the commissioners in a work session that it was highly unlikely there were precious metals present in any commercially viable quantities, and even if there were harvestable metals, the county was free to mine the material returned to the pit after the chromite is removed. He also told them that the chances of health hazards arising from the mining process were incredibly remote, because all the elements that might make the mineral hazardous have been present in the soil for eons without a problem; and nothing in the mining process will change the chemical composition of the material. These all are things ORC’s experts have been telling them for three years.

So, commissioners, sign them up or send them on their way and take your chances explaining to the taxpayers of this county why you walked away from a viable revenue source — that poses minimal risk if any — come election time in 2010.  Oh, and we don’t want to hear you whine about timber payments being cut and state mandated budget cuts. This is your opportunity to supplant at least some of those losses; carpe diem.

Ray Penny

North Bend