John Tsitrian has done a good job of pointing out the errors in the public statements of Azarga/Powertech as it continues to drum up cash from investors to back its long-delayed plan to build an in-situ uranium mine in Custer and Fall River counties in the southern Black Hills. Now Tsitrian (and the rest of us alarmed by the prospect of Chinese predations on our uranium and water) has the satisfaction of seeing Azarga itself admit it was wrong.
A British Columbia Securities Commission review, prompted in part by Tsitrian’s complaint, has compelled Azarga to “clarify” its disclosure statements about its pending mining projects. Businessman Tsitrian summarizes:
Here’s some of the language that the justifiably chastened Azarga this morning has used to explain what it has to do: 1) “The company is clarifying certain deficiencies;” 2) Its statements on the Black Hills project “did not include the necessary cautionary language required;” 3) And, in my view the most damaging to its over-hyping tendencies of all, Azarga had to state the following: “The preliminary economic assessment of the Dewey-Burdock project and the Centennial project are preliminary in nature and include inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves. There is no certainty that the preliminary economic assessments will be realized. Mineral resources are not mineral reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability.”
These remarks are a concession to the reality that Azarga’s venture is highly speculative in nature and that its prospects don’t have any economic viability demonstrated by its explorations. This is so egregious an oversight that the company’s statements include a closing notation that “The Company has removed the Presentation and certain other non-compliant Disclosure Documents from its website until updated documents can be posted to correct the identified deficiencies.”
Wow. Could you imagine your own business being required to expunge misleading and deficient information from its website? These people are effectively being called liars [John Tsitrian, “Azarga (nee Powertech) Uranium Gets Busted. The Would-Be Mining Company in the Black Hills ‘Clarifies,’ ‘Withdraws,’ and ‘Removes’ Public Statements About Its Prospects,” The Constant Commoner, 2015.04.15].
Tsitrian pointedly concludes that if Azarga will mislead/lie to investors to get money, South Dakotans have cause to suspect that Azarga would fib to environmental regulators to get permits.
Cory, I’ve added an addendum to the piece giving e-mail address and file reference # for those who want to file their own complaints about Azarga’s misleading statements and disclosures. Here they are, e-mail and file reference number: inquiries@bcsc.bc.ca File #20150123-13143/ Azarga Uranium Corp. AZZ.TO
Good public service, John!
We owe a debt of thanks to John Tsitrian and the people with the Clean Water Alliance and Dakota Rural Action. If not for such warriors Powertech/Azarga would already be up and running. Hopefully people will realize that clean water is more important than the short term benefits of a few jobs and tax dollars paid to the counties and state.
Most appreciated, Mr. Seamans. My focus has been on the corporate aspects of the situation, with a ton of info gained from Jim Woodward’s site powertechexposed.com. Meantime, the informed and committed folks at CWA and DRA continue to make excellent technical and scientific cases against the proposed venture. This has been a community effort, indeed. While it’s gratifying to see that Canadian regulators have taken note of Azarga/Powertech’s operations, the challenge now is to get South Dakota authorities to understand the nature of the company and the risks that it poses.
Doesn’t this same construct of con men have some game going in Colorado where they have actually had permits for years but have been too busy extracting money from investors to do any mining? This is a time-honored tradition in the West and has made innumerable legions of mountebanks and scalawags prosperous.
Forrest overgrowth will never harm the Hills to the degree “Azarga” plans to.
Lobbyists lie n buy drinks and reclaim their honor with the SD legis. Still haven’t put the law and order back into the hands of our DENR.
http://www.hcn.org/articles/new-research-links-fracking-contamination-groundwater-pavillion-wyoming?utm_source=wcn1&utm_medium=email
“The authors’ conclusions conflict with a 2015 draft report from the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality which found that hydraulic fracturing fluids had a “negligible likelihood” of reaching shallower zones used for drinking water” id.
“Under the 2005 Energy Policy Act, hydraulic fracturing was exempted from the Safe Drinking Water Act. The industry is the only one allowed to inject toxic chemicals into underground formations that may be used for public drinking water.” id.