This post is in response to Hall Stewart of Commonwealth Silver and Gold Mining, Inc. explaining the Commonwealth Mine Project in Pearce, Arizona in the Willcox Range News
http://www.willcoxrangenews.com/opinion/editorials/article_d1a82aae-e5fa-11e3-a973-001a4bcf887a.html

Being among the Top Ten poorest states in America, there is no doubt that Arizona desperately needs jobs. Like the rest of the country, our economy is in the proverbial outhouse. Unfortunately, the main reason for this is our ineffective state and federal governments and their love affair with powerful corporations. Corporations that sell our jobs overseas, avoid paying taxes, and in the case of Commonwealth Silver and Gold Mining, Inc., reduce the American people into wage slaves for short-term jobs, while the real money is taken back to the mother country of Canada. With this said, Hall Stewart of Commonwealth Silver and Gold Mining, Inc. is truly a “Benedict Arnold” and a traitor to both the hard working people of Arizona and the United States of America.

Hall Stewart claims to have lived most of his life in “Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and the Sierra Madre of Chihuahua, Mexico”. This doesn’t make him a “good ol’ boy” in our book. As a matter of fact, if you visit Hall Stewart’s LinkedIn page (shown and linked below) you will see that he is proudly standing in front of a great Canadian landmark… How dare this man tell us that we do not have “cojones” and compare himself with John Wayne. John Wayne was an American hero both on screen and in real life. He was always on the side of the common people. Hall Stewart and his Canadian investors are the same predators that John Wayne would have brought to justice.

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Hall Stewart’s praise for his Canadian investors while talking down to the residents of Arizona is insulting. Not only do Canadian mining companies have the world’s worst environmental and human rights records, they are well known for ravaging and poisoning the countries that they operate in and then walking away without giving any thought to the devastation they leave behind.

Hall Stewart knows full well, that Canada’s mining regulations are among the highest in the world, HOWEVER, Canada does not enforce these regulations when their mining companies are operating outside of Canada. In other words, there’s no accountability for their actions whatsoever.

If you honestly believe that Hall Stewart and his Canadian mining “investors” are going to bring millions of dollars to our local economy, you are quite frankly mistaken. The only thing our community will get out of Hall Stewart’s promises are some low paying jobs that may last a few years in exchange for cyanide in our water, poor health for our residents, and damage to our land for decades to come. This does not sound very “John Wayne” like to us. This sounds more like reducing our community to a third-world nation in service of an oppressor’s government.

Bottom line, Hall Stewart and the Commonwealth Mine Project will not benefit our local economy in any meaningful or lasting way. After the damage is done, Hall Stewart and his Canadian investors will be the real winners, while we are left with a toxic mess, poisoned water, sickness, and homes that we can’t even give away.

Remember, when Hall Stewart says that the “Company” has and will continue to have a preference for hiring locally, this means just that, hired hands, with no stake in the real rewards. To add icing on the cake, drive on out to the mine and ask about job opportunities, THERE AREN’T ANY, AND THERE WON’T BE ANY… The reason for this, it that Hall Stewart and his Canadian bosses, don’t want any of us to know what’s really going on, for if we did, we would be outraged.

It is an outright joke for Hall Stewart to mention a “history of community service”, when his Canadian mining companies are building a 100 meter deep open-pit cyanide mine right next to the Pearce Elementary School. Are we really dumb enough to pardon this because these corporate criminals donated $5,000 worth of chairs to the school’s gymnasium?

Hall Stewart also claims to not only be a John Wayne type of fellow with big cojones, but also to be a savior of the common people. As for the story of bringing an electrical grid into the remote mountain community of Ocampo Chihuahua, this was done to power their mining operations. They also donated a four-year scholarship to “ONE” person, who they conveniently hired to be their “Manager of Environmental Affairs”, which sounds like a serious conflict of interest… Note that the young man who acts as their “Manager of Environmental Affairs” has a degree in biology and no real world experience in environmental management. Is this the type of company we want playing Russian roulette with our water and land?

Our community is not barren and low in plant diversity. Hall Stewart can do the apology dance on this issue all he wants, however, it’s not going to be accepted. The reason for him and his company making such a statement that our area is barren and low in plant diversity was for the benefit of his company’s Canadian investors. Apparently Canadian investors have some conscience.

Water, Water, Water… Water is what keeps us alive, waters our crops, and sustains our livestock. How can Hall Stewart gloss over this most important element of the conversation, even worse, is that what he is telling us is unacceptable – 3,000 gallons per minute for their “proposed” processing plant? Those of us in the agricultural community should be concerned with the vagueness of what Hall Stewart is telling us, and even more concerned of how their use of cyanide will affect our water and land. How can Hall Stewart say with a straight face that their proposed pumping for process water will have little or no impact on the area, when our water tables are at historically low levels, and only getting lower every year?

Silver as a “Green” metal? Obviously, Hall Stewart does not understand what words such as “Green”, “Renewable”, etc. mean, so it’s not even worth more words to discuss. We all know that Hall Stewart is simply reaching for straws to sell us on a bad idea for our community so he and his Canadian investors can line their pockets at the expense of our water, health, and precious land.

Quite frankly, if Hall Stewart wants to play the good guy, he can do it somewhere else; because we can see through him. He is not a John Wayne, his cojones are small, and he’s got a big fight on his hands. We are not going to sell out our water rights, the health of our children, or the quality of our environment for Hall Stewart and his Canadian investors to make their personal fortunes at the expense of our community. It’s time we saddle up as a community and show these Canadian folks how we ride in the old west…and send this “Canadian company” packing back to Canada where they belong.

Learn more about what Hall Stewart and his Delta Gold Corporation and Commonwealth Silver and Gold Mining Inc. have to say in their latest press release (which is marked, “NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA“):
https://commonwealthmine.org/2014/06/07/delta-gold-corporation-and-commonwealth-silver-and-gold-mining-inc-going-after-our-water-rights-in-pearce-arizona/