Update, Nov. 18: Planning Commission Extends Comment Period to January 20, 2009.
GRASS VALLEY, Calif. Nov. 17, 2008 - On Nov. 12 the Grass Valley City Council and Planning Commission held a joint study session to hear a general overview of the Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) for Emgold's proposed cyanidation gold mine just 2 miles from downtown. The purpose of the meeting was informational only; no action was taken.
The DEIR was released on Oct. 30th and the public has been given 45 days - until Dec. 15 - to submit written comments on the 640-page tome. About half the number of people who addressed the council asked for an extension of the comment period.
The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) allows for the extension of the public comment period: "The public review period for a draft EIR shall not be less than 30 days nor should it be longer than 60 days except under unusual circumstances. When a draft EIR is submitted to the State Clearinghouse for review by state agencies, the public review period shall not be less than 45 days, unless a shorter period, not less than 30 days, is approved by the State Clearinghouse."
Source: http://ceres.ca.gov/topic/env_law/ceqa/guidelines/art8.html
Staff suggested that a discussion on whether or not to extend the time to comment could be taken up by planning commissioners at their Nov. 18. meeting at 7 p.m. at GV City Hall.
City staff and consultants from Environmental Science Associates (ESA), the authors of the report, presented a Power Point presentation with a chronology of the project, general description, a history of the environmental review process, the format of the DEIR and information about the public review procedure. The presentation is available on the city's website.
Emgold Mining Corporation is a junior mining exploration company from Vancouver, B.C. It wants to reopen the abandoned Idaho-Maryland underground gold mine, which has been shuttered since 1956. Since then, Grass Valley has abandoned the resource-intensive extractive model of economic development and is striving for a diversified, clean and sustainable model of economic growth that doesn't kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
In other words, extraction is no longer the attraction in Grass Valley, where the beauty of the Sierra foothill landscape and lifestyle is the economic engine of the town's prosperity. While some say the city shouldn't turn away any prospect for jobs, others fear a return to hardrock mining will lower property values and act as a repellent to current residents, tourists, second-home buyers, retirees, families with children, small business owners, professionals, entrepreneurs and high-tech companies with sustainable jobs of the future.
Since it has been trading on the TSX Venture Exchange (1989), the company has yet to locate a mineable resource anywhere - including here in Grass Valley where they want to explore for gold after the Idaho-Maryland mine workings are completely dewatered. If their plan is approved by city, state, and federal agencies it would be the only medium-to-large hardrock metal mine in California and the only one operating in any city's borders. The mine property is virtually surrounded by residential and commercial development. Patients at the town's hospital would have a bird's-eye view of the operation.
The mine would be built on top of an aquifer shared by private wells and alongside Wolf Creek - which flows into Bear River, a tributary to the Sacramento River. Emgold would have to dewater 70 miles of flooded mine workings and use the creek to flush the water downstream. Initial dewatering to a depth of 3280 ft. would dispose of 532 million gallons of water and take from 6 to 9 months, according to Emgold. Then, the removal rate would decrease to 500 gpm - 1200 gpm and continue until the mine's planned obsolescence in 2029.
Since there is no place on site to store or reclaim mine waste, Emgold wants to bury half of the 2400 tons of waste produced daily in the mine's shafts, which will eventually fill with water again and increase the risk of acid formation and contaminant leaching from crushed waste rock and tailings - decades after the mine ceases operations.
The other half Emgold says it can turn into ceramic tiles via an invention it calls Ceramext ('ceramic extrusion') - a novel and proprietary manufacturing process Emgold claims can melt and reform mine waste into consumer products. It has not been demonstrated to work on a commercial scale. Emgold announced in Nov. 2006 that, in order to save money for the environmental review process, it was deferring any more capital investment in its subsidiary, Golden Bear Ceramics, which is responsible for developing the new technology into a commercially viable method of mine waste disposal. Since then, Emgold has been seeking investors to spin off GBC into an independent entity able to raise capital on its own.
Emgold claims it can mine without depleting or polluting Grass Valley's water supplies, but history and science are not on its side:
- According the EPA's Toxic Release Inventory, for the past 9 years in a row hardrock metal mining has been the #1 polluting industry in America - in spite of environmental regulations (http://www.epa.gov/tri/ )
- Last month, a report released by Blacksmith Institute and The Green Cross placed toxins released by industrial mining activities and metals smelting on its 2008 Top Ten list of the world's most dangerous pollution problems that contribute disproportionately to the death and disability of children (blacksmithinstitute.org).
A ground-breaking December 2006 study of 25 representative metal mines permitted in the U.S. during the last 25 years revealed widespread failure to keep mines from polluting water. The peer-reviewed research found that "faulty water quality predictions, mitigation measures and regulatory failures result in the approval of mines that create significant water pollution problems. Despite assurances from government regulators and mine proponents that mines would not pollute clean water, researchers found that 76 percent of studied mines exceeded water quality standards, polluting rivers, and groundwater with toxic contaminants, such as lead, mercury, arsenic and cyanide, and exposing taxpayers to huge cleanup liabilities." Other findings:
- 93 percent of mines that are near groundwater and have elevated potential for acid drainage or contaminant leaching exceeded water quality standards
- 85 percent of mines that are near surface water and have elevated potential for acid drainage or contaminant leaching exceeded water quality standards
- Water quality standards for toxic heavy metals, such as lead, mercury, cadmium, copper, and zinc, were exceeded at 63 percent of mines.
In light of the environmental failure rate at modern mines, especially at high risk mines - those near water resources - it's not surprising that residents asked for more time to review the scientific procedures and methods ESA used to predict the impacts of Emgold's proposed mine.
To complicate matters, there's the issue of Emgold's financial condition. The Economic Viability Study done by BAE in July 2005 is badly out of date. Since then, the cost of gold mining has soared. Today, it costs more than $500 (in labor, fuel, electricity, raw materials, etc.) to produce a single ounce of gold, and that's the cost of production at gold mines already up and running. Emgold would have to build its mine from scratch - presuming it even finds a legally mineable resource via exploration. Gold has dropped to about $720 an ounce this month, so profit margins are slim. Even senior mining companies with cash and access to credit are deferring planned projects, delaying capital-intensive exploration, cutting back on workers and putting marginal mines into cold storage.
But it's the junior mining companies like Emgold that are in a real struggle to survive. Non-mining juniors like Emgold don't qualify for credit from banks, even prior to the global economic crisis and credit crunch. That's because Emgold has no cash flow from mineral sales. The only source of operating capital for juniors like Emgold is through the sale of equity securities on Canadian penny-stock exchanges.
Today, even gold bugs accustomed to buying cheap penny stocks have no appetite for risky junior mining stocks. Emgold is selling for 5 cents CAN a share on the TSX Venture Exchange. Typically, junior mining companies seek the financial backing of senior mining firms for operating capital. Emgold still insists it can go it alone.
Without a cash-rich senior partner, it remains to be seen how Emgold can finance exploration activities in Grass Valley - much less construct a mine, water treatment facility, cyanide plant, and ceramic tile factory. It also remains to be seen if the City of Grass Valley will finalize the EIR prior to Emgold demonstrating it has the cash on hand to do what it says it can do over the 20-year projected life of the mine. To read Emgold's latest financial statement (June 30, 2008) go to www.sedar.com.
For an independent source of information, research and news about the project, a diverse group of concerned residents, Citizens Looking At Impacts of Mining (CLAIM-GV), has just formed and launched their website at www.claim-gv.org. The group is welcoming new members and offering ways for residents to take part in the permitting process, including collaborating with them to comment on the DEIR. To contact them by phone, call 530-264-6058.
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