20 Stories - Grant County Crusader: Sally Smith of GRIP
On her regular drive into Silver City along highway 152, Sally Smith would pass the Santa Rita del Cobre mine – the 4th largest open-pit mine in the United States. The mine, also known as the Chino pit, was owned by Phelps Dodge (now Freeport McMoRan). One day, while glancing at the 100 year old pit, she wondered: “Who is responsible for the quality of our watershed?”
It was 1993, and Law Center Executive Director Doug Meiklejohn and former Staff Attorney Doug Wolf were traveling throughout the state holding public outreach meetings with the Energy, Mining and Natural Resources Department. Their goal: to hammer out regulations supporting the New Mexico Mining Act. “That’s when I met the ‘Two Dougs,’” recalls Smith. “I wanted to educate myself about how our water quality was regulated and I heard about these public meetings.” From that point on Smith got involved in the regulation process of the Mining Act and became a member of the department’s advisory board.
“I was working alone and at one of these meetings I met Harry Browne. We thought the Act was so important, especially for Grant County, that we should start a non-profit.” They founded the Gila Resources Information Project (GRIP) in 1997 and Sally has been the president ever since. GRIP, though small, has been able to go head to head with big entities such as the State of New Mexico and Phelps Dodge.
Represented by the Law Center, GRIP settled its appeal of Chino mine’s proposal to dilute its contaminated waste water with clean groundwater. In 2008, after seven years of wrangling, Freeport McMoRan agreed to use a more effective treatment technology that would save 9,000 acre-feet of clean groundwater annually. (Read Chino case details) The Law Center and GRIP continue to fight Tyrone mine’s closure plan, trying to ensure future remediation and bonding of the mine. As the five year renewal of Tyrone’s discharge permit approaches, Smith remembers the beginning days at GRIP. “We thought that we would do other things for Grant County once the permit situation was finished,” says Smith, “but that was twelve years ago and we are not finished yet.” (Read Tyrone case details)
GRIP has accomplished one major goal that Smith had set: “I wanted the public to have a seat at the table. [Phelps Dodge] had been so cavalier about their impact on the community. They played hard ball - claiming costs are too high and loss of jobs, but they don’t pull that anymore. We help support the Environment Department’s enforcement of the Act. We bring the public presence, we review documents, we make comments, get the public to show up at hearings and the public holds them accountable.”
Looking back on the years of work, Smith says, “We never could have done what we did without the Law Center. No one had the expertise and we were a minority in a mining community. We are a very small non-profit and with the Law Center, we managed to make a huge difference.” Back to top