BAKER CITY HERALD • THuRsDAY, MAY 26, 2022 A7
OREGON/SPORTS
From France, with glove
IAN CRAWFORD
icrawford@bakercityherald.com
Two members of the Baker JV
baseball team learned the game
5,000 miles from Baker City.
Raphaël Tisca and Hugo La-
caille are foreign exchange stu-
dents from France who were able
to visit America after pandemic
restrictions were eased.
“We come from Rouen in
Normandy,” the pair wrote to the
Herald. “We were able to partic-
ipate in this exchange program
through Thomas Joseph, who
helped us with all the necessary
steps to realize the project of
studying in Baker.”
Joseph, principal for the Eagle
Cap Innovative High School, an
alternative program in the Baker
School District, is also principal
and instructor at the district’s
Oregon International School.
Raphaël and Hugo, whose
hometown is more than 1,000
years old, have appreciated the
sights of the comparatively un-
tamed Oregon.
“Oregon is a very beautiful
state, with beautiful landscapes
and where people are friendly
and kind,” they wrote. “We vis-
Grouse
Continued from Page A6
That’s if the amount of land dis-
turbed is less than five acres.
Anything more than that, and
the BLM must approve a more
detailed plan accounting for im-
pacts to land, water and wildlife.
Dudfield said all of the com-
pany’s exploration activities are
reviewed by BLM and the Or-
egon Department of Geology
and Mineral Industries to en-
sure compliance with environ-
mental regulations. He added
that Jindalee is conducting envi-
ronmental and cultural studies
to help it avoid sensitive areas.
What’s law got to do with it?
Experts argue mining regu-
lations have not kept up with
the industry.
The law governing most
mining and prospecting on
public lands is 150 years old.
Thea Riofrancos, an associate
professor of political science
at Providence College and an
expert on lithium extraction,
says the General Mining Law
ited Baker City and saw Antho-
ny’s Lake under the snow.”
Although baseball is re-
nowned as America’s game, the
sport has a curious appeal in
small pockets all over the world.
Raphaël and Hugo were en-
amored from their first pitch.
“My father has always been a
big fan of the United States and
in 2016 he suggested I take up
baseball and I fell in love with
the sport,” Raphaël said.
“Baseball is a sport that is not
very developed in France, but it
is evolving,” the pair wrote. “In
Europe, the sport is very devel-
oped in some countries like Ger-
many or Italy.”
Hugo said he practiced dance
for seven years before he started
with baseball.
“And it was during a sports
discovery day that I tried base-
ball for the first time,” he wrote.
“The same evening, my mother
and I looked for the nearest club.”
That’s the Rouen Huskies, a
team that has won many cham-
pionships.
Raphaël and Hugo credited
their hometown coaches, Dylan
Gleeson, Mickael Cerda and Es-
of 1872 is woefully out of date
when it comes to the environ-
mental and social impacts of
modern mining.
“It actually explicitly encour-
ages prospecting in ways that
can harm the ecosystems of
public lands,” Riofrancos said,
adding that those lands are of-
ten in close proximity to Native
American reservations.
Riofrancos has closely stud-
ied mining in Latin America,
which includes some of the
world’s biggest producers of
raw battery materials such as
lithium and copper.
As governments there have
pushed to expand the mining
industry, she’s found it’s come
at a tremendous environmen-
tal and human cost. Riofrancos
said that though the U.S. has
stronger protections for the
environment, labor and peo-
ple, mining is just as disruptive
here as it is anywhere.
“We’re looking at a very in-
vasive economic sector that is
among the most environmen-
tally destructive in the world,”
Riofrancos said.
Riofrancos said the U.S.
teban Prioul, with helping them
hone their skills.
“My level improved a lot, espe-
cially with the coaching of very
good coaches,” Raphaël wrote.
“I signed up with the Rouen
Huskies where I was very well re-
ceived and where my sports level
evolved extremely well,” Hugo
wrote. “Then I was recruited in
a high level center: The Rouen
Baseball Center.”
The two say they’ve felt wel-
come in Oregon.
“We made good friends and
we were very well received,” they
wrote. “Moreover, the atmosphere
in the junior varsity is great and
everyone gets along well.”
Discussing places they’d still
like to see during their trip, they
wished to see more of the beau-
tiful U.S. landscape, and if given
a chance, to visit San Francisco.
They’re also hoping they’ll have
a chance at some local pastimes,
such as fishing and hunting.
When asked whether they
have managed to get involved in
any uniquely American fun, they
swung for the fences.
“We got to shoot a potato
launcher.”
needs to envision a transition
off fossil fuels that minimizes
the amount of material coming
out of the ground.
President Joe Biden has been
cautious about encouraging
new mining even as he’s taken
a number of steps to support
battery production in the U.S.,
most recently invoking a Cold
War-era law to speed up the
process.
Biden said at a White House
event on critical minerals in
February that the nation needs
to “avoid the historical injus-
tices that too many mining op-
erations left behind in Ameri-
can towns.”
The Department of the In-
terior has formed a working
group to potentially overhaul
the federal mining law. Some
lawmakers, including Demo-
cratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Or-
egon, are promoting bills to
improve cleanup operations at
former mine sites and encour-
age more recycling of battery
materials.
During a virtual town hall in
March, Wyden said new min-
ing projects can be carried out
Ian Crawford/Baker City Herald
Raphaël Tisca, left, and Hugo Lacaille proudly display Bulldog colors at the Baker Sports Complex, on
May 20, 2022, where they have been playing JV baseball this spring.
“without throwing environ-
mental laws in the trash can.”
Long road ahead
Several abandoned mines dot
the McDermitt Caldera, includ-
ing the Opalite mercury mine
constructed in the 1920s. Warn-
ing signs stand before gaping
pits, crumbling structures and
huge piles of toxic waste.
People used to haul away
truckloads of the contaminated
gravel to use as fill for roads and
driveways in the border town
of McDermitt and on the Fort
McDermitt Indian Reservation,
eventually requiring a $1.2 mil-
lion Superfund cleanup.
The mine predated most en-
vironmental regulations in place
today, but mineral extraction
itself is still extremely damaging
— and in some cases done at a
much larger scale. Opalite is a
speck relative to the acres upon
acres of adjacent mining claims.
“This is tiny compared to
the devastation that would be
wrought by lithium mining
here,” said Fite, standing at the
old mine’s gate.
Achieving climate goals like
electrifying vehicle fleets and
increasing renewable energy
production will require lithium
and other raw materials. Some
in Oregon and elsewhere in
the country are eager to see the
jobs and economic develop-
ment that would accompany a
new mining boom.
Many conservationists ac-
knowledge that some new ex-
traction may be necessary to
meet future demand for these
materials, but they’re urging
government officials to be ex-
tremely cautious about where
new mines are located.
Fite says mining in southeast
Oregon, even for a metal as crit-
ical to fighting climate change
as lithium, would be disastrous.
“You don’t save the planet by
tearing up intact wildland eco-
systems,” Fite said.
The flurry of mining claims
and exploration on the Ore-
gon-Nevada border has galva-
nized conservation groups like
Fite’s and Native American tribes.
They’re lining up to defend the
landscape from new mining,
particularly the Jindalee project
and the proposed Thacker Pass
lithium mine in Nevada.
Dudfield estimates Jindalee
is at least five years and a lot of
work away from proposing a
mine if it ever does.
“At any fork in the road,
there can be a roadblock that
stops you,” Dudfield said. “The
lithium price could fall. There
could be some sort of permit-
ting issue that arises. And so we
can’t just flick a switch and pro-
duce lithium immediately.”
Sage grouse could be a big
roadblock.
The birds have continued to
suffer, despite efforts to save
them. A report published last
year by the U.S. Geological Sur-
vey says the sage grouse popu-
lation has dropped 80% since
1965, and about half those
losses have come in the past
two decades alone.
Jindalee has paused its min-
eral exploration in southeast
Oregon until summer, and sage
grouse are holding court on
the sprawling high desert land-
scape. For now, the McDermitt
Caldera still vibrates at day-
break with the ploinking song
of this iconic Western bird.
NeighbORly
[ INSPIRING KINDNESS ACROSS OREGON ]
Check in on a friend. Share your lunch. Offer to carry that. Grow a
garden and give it away. Ask the tough questions. Then listen. Stand
up for someone. Give someone a chance. Give yourself a break. Give
to the arts. Start a movement. Start a scholarship. Welcome the new
neighbors. Be patient. Walk a mile in their shoes. Donate shoes. Drop
off dinner. Leave the last donut. Leave no trace. Take responsibility.
Hold the door and your mind open. Endeavor to understand. RSVP.
Smile. Hope for nothing more than kindness in return.
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