Rio Tinto cares about human rights

I am a recent retiree from Rio Tinto and was offended by U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva's call for an investigation of Rio Tinto for human-rights violations in Indonesia ("Land swap for mine advances in Senate," Page One, Thursday). The majority owner of the mine referenced is Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. Therefore, Rep. Grijalva needs to start the investigation in his own backyard. Rio Tinto is the most human rights/environmentally conscious company that I have had the privilege of working for. Rio Tinto owns a diamond mine in northern Canada. They fly aboriginals in to work the mine in two-engine airplanes from all over northern Canada. Without this transportation to the mine, the aboriginals would not have any work opportunity where they live. Rio Tinto owns the Jacobs Ranch Coal Mine outside of Gillette, Wyo. The difference between the natural rolling prairie and the reclaimed mine area cannot be seen. The Resolution mine will be an underground mine. There will be no overburden that needs to be stacked on the ground to expose the copper ore, as is the case in all the open-pit mines in Arizona. There are millions of cubic yards of overburden that spoils the natural terrain at those mines. That will not be the case at the Resolution Copper mine. The only dirt that will be placed on the ground is from the tunnels and the sand that comes from the concentration process. - Ray McFarland, Sun City West