February 6, 1996

Letters to the Editor, (not yet published)
Austin American Statesman,
Austin, Texas

Dear Editor:

FM Properties/Freeport McMoRan's parade of prevarication continues in Bill Collier's letter of January 24, in which he says he'll "tell the truth" about me. Most egregious are two statements attributed to me, with quotations, which I never said. Please, Bill, put on your shoes and tell the truth for a change.

Here's just a small part of the parade. Mr. Collier's boss, Jim Bob Moffett, tells the press the federal government did not cancel their political risk insurance for their Irian Jaya (West Papua) mine because of environmental problems. Then the letter cancelling the insurance is released to the press and, lo and behold, the insurance was cancelled because of environmental problems. Mr. Collier runs a 30 minute info-mercial on Austin TV stations claiming the 100,000 tons of mine tailings dumped into Irian rivers every day does not hurt the river or rainforests and is just like Mother Nature, only faster. Then Freeport's own expert in Irian, Bruce Marsh, tells the New Orleans paper this is simply wrong. I also remember Mr. Collier's video claiming that algae blooms in Barton Creek are caused by decaying leaves and have nothing to do with the fertilizer and wastewater irrigated on Barton Creek golf courses. It goes on and on.

It's also worth noting that, once again, Mr. Collier and his company failed to respond to a written request for a public debate on these issues.

Sincerely,
Bill Bunch,
SOS Legal Defense Fund