Published on April 30, 2020
The following Letter to the Editor from Midas Gold appeared in the April 30 edition of the Star News.
Like many of you reading this edition of the paper, we are disturbed by racist comments found online by a fellow reader of The Star News. It was doubly jarring to read that those comments were allegedly posted by an investor in Midas Gold.
The comments are appalling, do not reflect our company, and deeply trouble every one of us at Midas Gold. These comments are not acceptable and reflect a very real and troubling form of bigotry and intolerance.
When we learned of these ignorant comments about Idaho Tribes made by an alleged investor in Midas Gold Corp., we went directly to the source. What we found was an anonymous chatroom where we could not verify anyone’s identity or if the individual making the comments in question even owned any shares in our parent company.
Regardless, these comments do not represent our company, our people or the values we live every single day. The Internet provides a veil of anonymity for those who want to post hateful comments. We have flagged the comments with the chatroom monitor and posted a statement in the same chatroom condemning what was written.
We hope you will judge our company by our actions and our work in our communities, not by the words of some unknown individual. There are thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of shareholders of Midas Gold and we have never encountered any that would tolerate such statements; if anything, the opposite is true – they expect us to hold to the highest standards of environmental protection, social justice and good governance.
It has always been our goal to develop long lasting partnerships of accountability and transparency with Idaho’s tribes. During the last many years, we have engaged honestly and openly with several of Idaho’s tribal governments and communities, looking for ways to work together.
We have common goals that can be achieved through collaboration. To this day, we remain open to exploring partnerships around the Stibnite Gold Project that benefit the environment, tribes, Idahoans looking for work and our communities.
It is worth mentioning that same letter to The Star News also claimed the U.S. Geological Survey reported water quality trends at Stibnite were improving. This did not sound correct to us, so we contacted the USGS.
The agency confirmed there is no USGS study or report which concludes that there is a decreasing trend in metal concentrations at Stibnite. (You can read the two USGS reports on Stibnite for yourself here and here).
For the purpose of accuracy, we would also note that the community agreement was drafted with input from representatives from the communities in the West Central Mountain region, not a formal organization.
Regardless of personal views on mining or our project here is what remains true: Hateful words, no matter where they are spoken, should be condemned. Using unverifiable misinformation to inflame controversy and pass false judgment is not news. Where we get our information matters and actions speak louder than words.
If you want to know the facts about Midas Gold, reach out to us. We are always happy to speak with community members and provide you with information that is backed by science and cited by credible, verifiable sources.
Signed by Laurel Sayer, Stephen Quin, Mckinsey Lyon, John Meyer, Alan Haslam, Kyle Fend, Hayley Rambur, Belinda Provancher, Shelley Bennett, Gene Bosley, Cindy Kneen, Chris Dail, Dale Kerner, Ken Assmus, Layne Mouritsen, Dave Williams, Jolene Stevens, Jordan Nielson, Ryan McCluskey, Johanna Defoort, Tracey Thurmond, Angie Miller, Tanya Nelson, Chuck Eilers, Dan Kline, Melanie Scott, Koda Merkley, Sara Larson
