“Cyanide Beach” to premiere in Washington, D.C. on April 25

April 19th, 2013
Share

InvestigativeMEDIA is pleased to announce the Washington, D.C. premiere of “Cyanide Beach” is scheduled for 6:30 p.m., April 25 at the award-winning E Street Cinema. Admission is free.

“The Washington screening of “Cyanide Beach” is a major milestone in our nationwide effort to inform the public and key policy makers of how a speculative Canadian mining company with a history of deception is exploiting outdated U.S. mining laws in its effort to build a massive open-pit copper mine on public lands in Southern Arizona,” says InvestigativeMEDIA Editor and Filmmaker John Dougherty.

Rep. Raul Grijalva, (D-AZ), Earthworks Executive Director Jennifer Krill and Earthworks Policy Director Lauren Pagel will attend the screening and answer questions about efforts to reform the General Mining Act of 1872.

InvestigativeMEDIA’s 24-minute video reveals the unethical business tactics of Augusta Resource Corporation’s top executives when they owned and operated a gold mine in Sardinia, Italy between 2003 and 2007.

Augusta Resource owns the Rosemont Copper Company, which is seeking government permits to build a mile-wide, half-mile deep copper mine in the Santa Rita Mountains on the Coronado National Forest southeast of Tucson.

Earthworks has dubbed the Rosemont mine project as the “poster child” for reforming the antiquated mining law.

The Washington Post selected the E Street Cinema as Washington’s Best Movie Theater in 2011 and 2012.

InvestigativeMedia releases 7,000 pages of Forest Service records on proposed Rosemont copper mine

April 1st, 2013
Share

InvestigativeMedia is pleased to release more than 7,000 pages of  Coronado National Forest records on the proposed Rosemont open-pit copper mine. The records were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The records include internal emails and supporting documents from January 2012 through early February providing a first-hand look at the permitting process for the proposed mile-wide, half-mile deep mine in the Santa Rita Mountains on the Coronado National Forest about 35 miles southeast of Tucson.

InvestigativeMedia encourages the public and other media to analyze the information and provide feedback on this site. The goal is to encourage public-interest, cloud reporting using this site as a clearinghouse of information, feedback, comments and suggestions on additional reporting.

InvestigativeMedia will issue a series of reports based on these records and information from other sources, including the public.

The Forest Service records are in two large PDF files available here and here.

The release of records is part of InvestigativeMedia’s ongoing review of Augusta Resource Corporation’s proposed Rosemont copper mine, including the 2012 documentary Cyanide Beach.

Update: InvestigativeMEDIA releases “Rosemont’s Power Play” report and announces digital release of “Cyanide Beach”

December 18th, 2012
Share

The multimedia project includes:Edit

  • Report:  A Sardinian gold mine unearths the deceptive business tactics of Rosemont Copper’s top executives. (Click Here)
  • Timeline: The top officers of Rosemont Copper’s parent company, Augusta Resource Corporation, have a history of bankruptcies, cease trade orders and stock exchange delistings (Click Here)

The multimedia project focuses on Augusta Resource Corporation, a Vancouver, British Columbia-based speculative mining company that wants to build a massive open pit copper mine in the environmentally-sensitive Santa Rita Mountains on the Coronado National Forest 35 miles south of Tucson, AZ.

InvestigativeMEDIA reviewed thousands of pages of financial documents and conducted interviews in the United States, Canada and Italy to document the business history of Augusta’s key executives.

The probe uncovered a tangled history of cease trade orders,  an insider trading settlement agreement, stock exchange delistings, personal and corporate bankruptcies, false disclosure statements to regulators and an abandoned Sardinian gold mine that is creating serious, ongoing environmental problems.

Las Cienegas National Conservation Area

Augusta owns the Rosemont Copper Company. Rosemont is seeking government permits to build what could become one of the largest copper mines in the United States, producing 240 million pounds of copper annually for approximately 21 years.

The mile-wide, half-mile deep mine would dump waste rock and mine tailings on more than 3,000 acres of the Coronado National Forest and destroy much of a watershed that provides runoff to a rare, shallow Sonoran Desert aquifer beneath the federally-protected Las Cienegas National Conservation Area.