Sunday 10 December 2006
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On a road..not far from here...
weed and mining
FLIN FLON, Manitoba -- In an abandoned Manitoba mine shaft 1,200 feet below the surface of a lake near Flin Flon, Brent Zettl is growing 185 kilos of marijuana this year.
Sounds risky, but Zettl's not worried about getting busted. His client for the $5.8 million crop is the government of Canada.
Zettl runs Prairie Plant Systems, a biotech firm out of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The pot he grows will go toward government-sponsored clinical tests to see if the drug is medically effective and can help alleviate the pain for people suffering from diseases such as AIDS and cancer.
The company is cultivating the herb in the mineshaft under grow lights in a 12,000 square-foot growth chamber. Zettl says the mine's underground growth chambers offer control over the plant's growth cycle as well as security.
"When you get 100 percent control over the environment, you take out the peaks and valleys of temperature and humidity stress. We have no bugs or disease underground, so the plants can now take all the energy and shift it to growth," said Zettl, the president and CEO of Prairie Plant Systems.
The plant's growth rate underground is accelerated as much as 400 percent, and Zettl says that one variety is growing as much as an inch-and-a-half daily. Zettl, who is growing the plants from seeds provided by Health Canada (who obtained them from drug arrests), expects the first crop of medical marijuana to be ready in October.
Zettl's lucrative marijuana contract comes from a series of happy coincidences. In 1991, after hard rock miners noticed orange and apple seeds, which they'd spit out, growing as high as six inches in total darkness before they died, the Hudson Bay Smelting and Mining Co. Ltd. invited Zettl's company to try their hand at growing plants underground.
The copper and zinc mine is still in use, with another 25 years of ore reserves estimated, but Hudson Bay's extraction is now carried about four miles away from Prairie Plant Systems' underground chamber.
When Prairie Plant Systems first went underground, the company was still concentrating on cloning and creating hardy, disease-free Saskatoon berry trees. In late 2000, the company received the five-year contract from Health Canada to become its pot supplier.
"Canada is acting compassionately by allowing the use of marijuana by people who are suffering from grave and debilitating illness," said Canadian Health Minister Allan Rock when he awarded the contract.
Health Canada tendered a contract for medical marijuana because it wanted a Canadian source of research-grade weed available to people participating in medical research programs, as well as for people authorized to use it for medical purposes.
The use of medical marijuana in Canada stems partly from a July 2000 Ontario Court of Appeals decision that ruled in the case of Terrance Parker, who used pot to help control his epilepsy.
The court stayed a 1997 lower court decision to uphold the charges against Parker on constitutional grounds, citing issues related to Section 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. That act gives the Health Minister discretion to decide who has access to marijuana for medical purposes.
Story continued on Page 2
Mining and his nature
Mining has played an important role in the development of the United States. In the past, the discovery of minerals such as gold and silver resulted in population shifts and economic growth. Extraction of minerals and coal continues to provide the foundation for local economies in some parts of the country. Products of this industry are used as inputs for consumer goods, processes, and services provided by all other industries, including agriculture, manufacturing, transportation, utilities, communication, and construction. Uses of mined materials include coal for energy, copper for wiring, gold for satellites and sophisticated electronic components, and a variety of other minerals as ingredients in medicines and household products.
Besides mining coal and metallic and nonmetallic minerals, employers in this industry explore for minerals and develop new mines and quarries. Metallic minerals include ores, such as bauxite—from which aluminum is extracted—copper, gold, iron, lead, silver, and zinc. Nonmetallic minerals include stone, sand, gravel, clay, and other minerals such as lime and soda ash, used as chemicals and fertilizers. This industry also includes initial mineral processing and preparation activities, because processing plants usually operate together with mines or quarries as part of the extraction process. (A separate section in the Career Guide covers careers in oil and gas extraction.)
Mining is the process of digging into the earth to extract naturally occurring minerals. There are two kinds of mining, surface mining and underground mining. Surface mining, also called open-pit mining or strip mining, is undertaken if the mineral is near the earth’s surface. This method usually is more cost-effective and requires fewer workers to produce the same quantity of ore than does underground mining. In surface mining, after blasting with explosives, workers use huge earthmoving equipment, such as power shovels or draglines, to scoop off the layers of soil and rock covering the mineral bed. Once the mineral is exposed, smaller shovels are used to lift it from the ground and load it into trucks. The mineral also can be broken up using explosives, if necessary. In quarrying operations, workers use machines to extract stone used primarily as a building material. Stone, such as marble, granite, limestone, and sandstone, is quarried by splitting blocks of rock from a massive rock surface.
Underground mining is used when the mineral deposit lies deep below the surface of the earth. When developing an underground mine, miners first must dig two or more openings, or tunnels, deep into the earth near the place where they believe coal or minerals are located. Depending on where the vein of ore is in relation to the surface, tunnels may be vertical, horizontal, or sloping. One opening allows the miners to move in and out of the mine with their tools and also serves as a path for transporting the mined rock by small railroad cars or by conveyor belts to the surface. The other opening is used for ventilation.
Entries are constructed so that miners can get themselves and their equipment to the ore and carry it out, while allowing fresh air to enter the mine. Once dug to the proper depth, a mine’s tunnels interconnect with a network of passageways going in many directions. Long steel bolts and pillars of unmined ore support the roof of the tunnel. Using the room-and-pillar method, miners remove half of the ore as they work the ore seams from the tunnel entrance to the edge of the mine property, leaving columns of ore to support the ceiling. This process is then reversed, and the remainder of the ore is extracted, as the miners work their way back out. In the case of longwall mining of coal, self-advancing roof supports, made of hydraulic jacks and metal plates, are moved ahead, allowing the ceiling in the mined area to cave in as the miners work back towards the tunnel entrance.
Once all the minerals or coal have been extracted, the mine and its surrounding environment must be restored to the condition that existed before mining began. In surface mining, the layers of topsoil, or overburden, that were removed in order to reach the mineral are used to fill in the mine and reshape the land. This ensures that native plants and animals will be able to thrive once again. Underground mining does not require as extensive a reclamation process; however, mine operators and environmental engineers still must ensure that ground water remains uncontaminated and that abandoned mines will not collapse. The reclamation process is highly regulated by Federal, State, and local laws, and reclamation plans often must be approved before mining permits will be granted.
During the 1990s, production of both minerals and coal increased. Given the more volatile price of metal, its production fluctuated more than that of nonmetallics. However, employment in both sectors declined significantly as new technology and more sophisticated mining techniques increased productivity, allowing growth in output while employing fewer workers. Most mining machines and control rooms are now automatic or computer-controlled, requiring fewer, if any, human operators. Many mines also operate with other sophisticated technology such as lasers and robotics, which further decrease the number of workers needed to mine materials.
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