Board of Supervisors: Vote No On the Rise Gold Mine Permit

By Joan Rose Staffen

Fiscal stability:

As shown in the NC Econ study and EIR the risk and liability to the county will increase due to accidents, traffic, insurance, monitoring, compliance measures, fire department and police department services.

Emergency preparedness:

Will require a larger budget to prepare for mine catastrophic fires sweeping through the IMM launching poison/toxic fumes from stored processing cyanide/mercury, toxic dust from mine tailing, property stored dynamite/explosives, debilitating smoke from wind suspended particulate, and insurance costs for new emergency community liability.

Economic development:

The county econ study only starts with a profitable mine operation. There is not any evidence that the mine will be profitable. On the contrary, mines were closed because they could not be profitable when environmental or community costs were not considered. The argument is made that gold values have risen and are not constrained today. The proponents conveniently do not mention that the labor, increased depth of mining, health, and mitigating measures to health and safety with associated environmental costs have increased astronomically, dwarfing any increase in gold value. It’s not rocket science to show that the likely outcomes from mine operations will bring a depressed economy, driven by lower tourism due to toxic environmental factors, traffic, and slow-moving truck-dominated highways and streets. Depressed real estate property prices lowered property assessment funds, and locals escaping the noise, traffic, and pollution for dining else ware. The largest economic sink will be from an unprofitable gold mine operation taxing county services and eventually leaving a toxic mess to be cleaned up by the county and state. In short, the IMM is an economic dumpster for the county.

Broadband:

Upgrading the internet is unnecessary, if we are going to have an operational, toxic gold mine that destroys our air, water, land, real estate and tourist industry, not to mention the health of the people of Nevada County.

Climate resilience:

Climate resilience would have projects where ground/well water or natural resources are being replenished or restored. A mine operation absorbs any and all available ground/well water and discards wastewater into a surface creek that will be flooded uniformly from mine dewatering. Mining destroys the fragility of nature’s balance and is the antithesis of climate resilience.

Housing:

Any IMM employment will bring in a tighter housing market based on projected workers arriving and this without any benefit to the community unless the IMM is very profitable, which is most certainly NOT going to happen for an abundance of reasons.

Homelessness:

An increase in homelessness can be expected as the IMM will be hiring people that are desperate. Desperate for unskilled labor opportunities, they aspire to wield a pickaxe a mile underground because mining is their only career choice available.

Recreation:

With a mining industry, we will experience a decrease in recreation in the county due to toxicity in the mountain streams keeping tourists out of the water, dead or inedible fish keeping fishermen out of the water, and traffic keeping everybody else recreating at home or at destinations out of the county. This brings us back full circle to the founding of Nevada City, built by miners engaged in “drinking, violence, and whoring” to pass any time outside the mines — recreating.

Conclusion — The Board of Supervisors will make a mockery of Nevada County’s 2023 eight objectives if a gold mining operation is permitted —an operation for an industry that ceased being profitable even without regulations 70 years ago. Instead, it will be a dead albatross around the neck of the county. The BoS has one decision, whether or not to sink Nevada County for the next 100 years. Our Nevada County is still reeling from the gold mine’s environmental damage from a hundred years ago — by founders with good intentions, but without understanding. Today we know that a mine is like an engine in a mountain once you start it, you cannot turn it off. The toxins and poisons that you unleash remain to leak in perpetuity. You now have an understanding and you will be held responsible for every individual ruined life that you take and community that you destroy. Vote no on the permit. Please stop the insanity now.