Free Republic

One of Dena Minning’s biggest assets in her congressional bid was her boyfriend: incumbent Alan Grayson, who’s leaving the U.S. House to run for U.S. Senate. Now, after Grayson has helped raise her profile and run for his U.S. House seat, he married her over the Memorial Day Weekend and gave her his last name, according to her Monday social-media posts and The Orlando Political Observer. Dena Minning promptly became Dena Grayson on Twitter and Facebook. The largely unknown outsider in the Orlando-area district now has a potent tool in running under the name of the incumbent in a crowded...

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Finnish engineers have poured pig manure into a contaminated pond next to an old mine, saying the bacteria in the slurry will clean up metals in the water. Mining company Outokumpu dumped 450 cubic meters of pig slurry into the waste water near the closed Kangasjarvi mine, which once produced zinc, copper and sulfur. "Pig slurry contains bacteria that bind metals that are in the mine water and they will sink to the bottom. We have used this system to clean mine waters at various mines," Eero Soininen, Outokumpu's mine reclamation manager, told Reuters. "Around 15 years...

HELENA, Mont. (AP) - A judge sidelined a copper and silver mine criticized by environmentalists and swank jeweler Tiffany, saying the plan was approved without consideration of the possible harm to imperiled grizzly bears and bull trout. Judge Donald Molloy said the Fish and Wildlife Service inadequately weighed the possible effects of the mining proposal on wildlife that fall under the protection of the federal Endangered Species Act. Revett Silver Co. has proposed developing the Rock Creek mine on the edge of the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness Area in northwestern Montana. Environmentalists praised the Monday ruling. "It's a huge victory for...

 WASHINGTON -- Last Oct. 20, Sen. John Kerry, in nonstop derision of President Bush, declared: "Where we see a beautiful mountaintop, George Bush sees a strip mine." That environmentalist rhetoric, backed by Kerry's Senate voting record, injects the senator into confrontation with the coal industry that could defeat him for president. That is his burden in Wheeling, W.Va., Monday, on a campaign swing that includes visiting a coal mine. Coal is a side issue in Congress, but it is critical to two states won by Bush in 2000 that could decide the 2004 presidential election. Coal production is important for Ohio...

IDAHO FALLS _ Two environmental groups have sued a phosphate mining company, charging that it has allowed selenium-contaminated water to flow into a creek in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest. The Greater Yellowstone Coalition and the Idaho Conservation League claim that Nu-West Industries, Inc., which runs Agrium Conda Phosphate Operations, is violating the Clean Water Act by contaminating Mill Creek, a tributary of the Blackfoot River. "We have given Nu-West Industries ample time to remedy the pollution in this area," said Marv Hoyt, Greater Yellowstone's Idaho director. "Unfortunately, nothing has changed on the ground, and the dangerous selenium levels continue putting...

Posted on Sun, Nov. 10, 2002 By Patrick Kerkstra Inquirer Staff Writer The Philadelphia Inquirer SOMERSET, Pa. - Even as they were hauled soaked and sooty from a flooded coal mine 240 feet under, the future was all but cast for the famously trapped, miraculously freed Quecreek Nine. There would be a book about their 77-hour near-death ordeal, of course, and a TV movie. Oprah's people would call, and People's people. Under the media gro-lights, this middle-of-nowhere town would turn for a moment into the center of the universe, a destination for busloads of tourists to come and gawk at...