"There is nothing rare or holy about growing corn."

"Actually, they are superstitious and bitter people, whose hatred of technology and sense of arrogant moral superiority causes them to believe their minority view is more important than the best interests and public opinion of this entire region."

"Must a living civilization take a back seat to a dead one? "

"The folks whose religious views we are supposed to accept as superior to our own believed that the world rested on the back of a turtle."

Update - June 5, 1997

The appeal to stop the mine has been denied. Please visit the most current page re this issue to see the latest declarations from Bob Lonsberry...your support via the input form is desperately needed so as to support the appeal...

Feedback has been received concerning this campaign and I am including it here...

The comments immediately above re the First Nations and those who object to the trampling on Native American burial sites were made by Bob Lonsberry a columnist for the Livington Country News and host of a WHAM (radio) show which airs from Rochester, New York.

Mr. Lonsberry, in a March 13, 1997 newspaper has declared is/was a "missionary" who has, allegedly, ministered to the First Nations:

• "I was impressionable then, a young dumb kid, supposedly a missionary, dropped off for a couplke of years in another. The first eight months, before I moved to the White Mountain Apache and later the Navajo, I lived in Hopiland..."

• "The new Mt. Morris mine is good, and the present must not be a slave to the past. And neither must it be a slave to those who reach up only to pull their brothers down."

• "In recent weeks, a meager campaign to protest my support of the mine drew attack mail from around the country.

  "And that struck me. I got computer mail from 15 states, two Canadian provinces, and Ireland, maybe 25 pieces in all. Several called for me to be fired, many said I was a racist and a bigot, and all demanded that the Mt. Morris mine not be opened."

• " Outsiders imposing their will on us.

  "Outsiders believing their particular philosophy was more important than our legitimate interests.

  "Outsiders reaching up to pull us back into the trap.":

Lonsberry's employer, Chuck Lyons, says " What bothered me about these email messages, was that all the writers - I think without exception - were outraged, appaled, and furious. All Demanded this and that from us.

"They are not going to get it."

Your support is urgently needed...please read on and then respond via the input form at the bottom of this page...

This page was prompted by comments made by a member of the media which appeared in a local newspaper in late February, 1997. It was he who posited the quotations above. The full text of his article is below... While, as you will see, the original plan by AZKO Nobel to "rebuild" their mine has been cancelled, there is now a new plan to rebuild...this prompted by local entrepreneurs.

Scars resulting from the original mine collapse dot the landscape...two sinkholes hundreds of feet in diameter gobbled farmland and swallowed 70-foot-tall-trees. A bridge collapsed. Dozens of wells were sucked dry. Several square miles of the Genesee Valley sank eight feet, with entire area over the mine complex expected to follow (the underground mine area is calculated to be as large as the island of Manhattan). Small tremors have continued almost monthly and hip-deep cracks have opened in farmers fields. Malodorous hydrogen and explosive methane continues to seep from the grounds. Wells drilled to vent the gases burn continuously and light the skies at night

Most of the salt mined was used for road salt for New York State, New York City, and for New England.

Your support is urgently needed...please read on and then respond via the input form at the bottom of this page...

• Cuylerville, New York...March 12, 1994 - "Just before dawn an earthquake rumbled across the gentle slopes and rich flood plains of the Genesee River Valley...30 miles south of Rochester.

  "The tremor, registering 3.6 on the Richter scale, did not come from a natural shift in a fault; it was the sound of the largest salt mine in the Americas dying.

  " A thousand feet beneath the village, on the southern fringe of the Retsof Salt Mine [owned and operated by the Dutch chemical firm AKZO-Nobel], a roof slab larger than the field at Yankee Stadium fell to the floor. No one was hurt, but the mine - an 18-square mile hive of chambers excavated over a century by four generations of miners - began to flood. One million gallons of water an hour gushed through the breach from acquifiers above.[One estimate put the mine at roughly the size of Manhattan Island]"

  "Permits were quickly issued for a new $120 million mine three miles from Cuylerville."

• Chief Leo R. Henery, Clerk of the Tuscarora Nation Letter from Chief Leo R. Henery, Clerk of the Tuscarora Nation to President Clinton - February 5, 1996:

  "One behalf of the Chiefs, Clan Mothers and People of the Tuscarora Nation, I extend their greetings and hope all is well with you and your family.

  "The Chiefs and Clan Mothers of the Tuscarora Nation would like to share our concern, regarding the AKZO Nobel salt mine located in Livingston County of New York State. The Tuscarora Nation, while originally from North Carolina, erected a major village in the Genesse Valley during the sixteenth century and we feel that this site is now jepordized by AZKO Nobel's intent to develop a new mine. Our ancestors lived and died at the location that is proposed for a new operation and we feel that such a venture would most assuredly disrupt the grave sites of our ancestors. While we are sure that you are aware of New York State and Federal requirements for the protection of Indian graves, we are deeply concerned that you will allow all concerned with this project to ignore respect for our dead and will [sic] desecrate the graves of our ancestors. We wish to inform you that we are opposed to any development that would threaten the peace and tranquility of the remains of our ancestors.

  "We would welcome an opportunity to further discuss this matter with you. As of this time we have never been contacted by AKZO Nobel. We hope that you take advantage of this opportunity to open a dialogue and perhaps we can arrive at a mutually acceptable alternative to what we understand to be proposed for the future. We look forward to your response. Thank you for taking the time to hear our concerns."

  Chief Leo R. Henry Clark

• Documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show that AKZO's contract archaeologists ADMIT that 28 archaeological sites including NATIVE AMERICAN BURIAL MOUNDS AND SINGLE BURIAL sites exist at the proposed project site. Another 53 sites will be destroyed or directly impacted by the proposed mine and rail lines.

  The proposed project area is located with the boundaries of the Seneca Caneada Reservation of 24 square miles. The reservation was never sold and was along with other adjacent reservations specifically exempted from sale by the Big Tree Treaty [September 15,1779. The land they want[ed] to use is Native American Land. Archaeologists know that the Hampton Corners area is an important Native American cultural, historical, and religious site. Artifacts from the glacial era through the mid 1800's have been found there. The Caneada Council House, which is now in Letchworth Park, was located there.

• ON APRIL 22, 1996 IT WAS ANNOUNCED THAT AKZO NOBEL WAS ABANDONING IT'S PLAN TO BUILD A NEW MINE.

• February 11, 1997...Local Group Enters Agreement to Resurrect Hampton Corners Salt Mine Project From AKZO Nobel.

• February 21, 1997 Article Certifies The Threat To Native Burial Sites and Artifacts

"Salt mining is a peculiar trade. It gives life and it gives death, and not many people know that better than joe Bucci."

"When his grandfather came here from southern Italy, back at the turn of the century, it was the salt mine that let a poor immigrant earn his daily bread. It was the salt mine that made him an American."

"But decades later the B Shaft came down on four men and one of them was that immigrant's son. It was 1975 and Joe Bucci was 30 and the salt mine killed his dad. So this isn't about money. It's about blood."

"When I heard that AKZO did, backing out of that mine," Joe said, "I was so disappointed, it ticked me off. So I went to work on it."

"It, in this case, is the resurrection of a tradition of mining in this community that goes back to before Custer fought at the Little Bighorn. Joe Bucci decided to try to save the Mt. Morris mine."

"The Mt. Morris mine? Why not? Hampton's Corners is nothing but an obscure intersection on the road to Geneseo, and hardly worthy of being a place name. The mine is in the town of Groveland, but nowhere near anything anybody would call Groveland, and the nearest place is Mt. Morris. The community with the most natural and convenient affinity for the new mine is Mt. Morris, this columnist would like to officially claim it."

"Anyway, Joe Bucci - as a successful real estate broker - had plenty of experience putting together land deals, so he took a stab at taking over the mine project orphaned by AKZO Nobel. He got a smart lawyer and they went after partners and now they think they have a shot at actually breaking ground."

"They have a shot at bringing back a heritage that has bolstered this county through most of its history. Beyond that, they have the distinction of knowing that their efforts are an answer to the prayers of hundreds of good people from all around here."

"But there is a hurdle."

"There is, pending in Albany, a law suit filed by environmentalists. At least that's what they call themselves. Actually, they are superstitious and bitter people, whose hatred of technology and sense of arrogant moral superiority causes them to believe their minority view is more important than the best interests and public opinion of this entire region. They claim to speak for the little people, and then they make certain that the little people remain jobless and dislocated."

"They claim to speak for miners, and then they make certain there will be miners no more."

"If the law suit is successful, Joe Bucci and his partners will bail out. They can afford to open a mine, barely, but they can't afford to be bled to death by lawyer fees, or to pay for court-ordered duplicate tests which AKZO has already completed. They can afford to open a mine, but they can't afford to pay extortion.'

"So the mine's opponents need to understand the gravity of their mischief. They need to be honest enough to accept the totality - and stupidity - of their positions."

"First, about the sacred Indian land. There is no archeological evidence the Indians ever did anything at the site of the Mt. Morris mine. Period. And so what if they had? Is the present a slave to the past? Must a living civilization take a back seat to a dead one?"

"There is a racist component to the newly revived Noble Savage view of American Indians. It is a complete lie that the Senecas, or any Indians, lived in "peace" or "harmony" with their environment or that they somehow had a superior world view. It's worth remembering, in our rush to worship the past, that Mary Jemison got to be the White Woman of the Genesee after her parents were eaten by her Indian captors."

"The folks whose religious views we are supposed to accept as superior to our own believed that the world rested on the back of a turtle."

"The Indians were simply people trying to make their way through life the best they could - just like we are. They were normal folks, like us, trying to keep body and soul together. And so if they wanted to farm they practiced slash-and-burn, and if they got a chance to drive a herd of thousands of buffalo off a cliff they took it. The mastodon is gone because several civilizations ago, it was hunted to extinction. The Indians used natural resources to their benefit, and so should we."

"Second, this nonsense about the farmland. There is nothing rare or holy about growing corn. Corn grows all over everywhere. It is plentiful, easily sustained crop. Putting a rail spur across somebody's corn field is not going to violate any agrarian tradition or signal the end of the family farm. It is amazing to hear all this swaking about how somebody or other must protect his land against the evil rail spur - because he loves growing corn on it so much - and then drive by and see For Sale signs."

"It is also amazing that these activists would put the interests of one corn grower above the interests of 200 salt miners."

"One other thing about the farmland. The people who say it must not be bisected by a railroad track claim to be environmentally motivated. Yet when the snow turns brown along those fields with the waste of wind-ravished topsoil, they say nothing, and when a summer night's drive past those fields is fouled by the smell of agricultural chemicals, they again are silent."

"It seems they are only environmentalists when it suits them. And their hobby of meddling in other people's business must come to a stop. Because now the stakes are too high. Local people want to open a mine. A small mine, like Retsof was. And they plan to use the pillars that lasted a century, and never bury ash or garbage in our ground. They want to do right by our heritage."

"And we need them to. Our economic development efforts have gone nowhere. Joe Bucci's idea is a godsend. It's time to rally. One last time."

from the Livingston County News/Thursday, February 20,1997 pg.5