January 14, 2020 – A Canadian company, Rise Gold Corporation, aka Rise Grass Valley, has filed an application for a permit to reopen the Idaho Maryland mine. These are some key points from the initial application:
• The operation will remove 1000 tons of ore and 500 tons of non-gold bearing rock a day with mining continuous 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
• The headframe, rock conveyors, ore crushers/grinders, water treatment plant, paste backfill plant, and truck loading area will all be located at the Brunswick Industrial Site at the corner of East Bennet and Brunswick Road. 122,000 square feet of industrial buildings will be constructed at this site.
• Haul trucks—50 to 100 round trips per day, running from 6 AM to 10 PM, 7 days a week—will dump a mixture of barren rock and processed tailing sand at two sites: the southern end of the Brunswick site, near to and behind homes on Mink Court, Elk Lane, Brunswick Drive, and Cedar Ridge Drive; and at the Centennial site, off Idaho Maryland Rd, along the edge of Wolf Creek.
• The trucks will be loaded with rock with a front-end loader from 7 AM until 7 PM, 7 days a week. After the rock is dumped, it will be compacted beginning at 7 AM using bulldozers, graders, and rolling compactors. This operation will create a large amount of noise and dust. Dust from these operations is likely to contain asbestos as well as lead and arsenic from massive tailings that must be remediated first.
• In addition to four industrial-size backup diesel generators, the exhaust from the daily use of diesel trucks, bulldozers, graders, and compactors, will greatly increase greenhouse gas emissions.
• The paste backfill plant will create 500 tons of backfill every day, 7 days a week. The production of the cement used to make the backfill paste will release an estimated 55,000 pounds of CO2 daily. Thus, the CO2 generated in one day—just by the backfill plant—will be roughly equivalent to the CO2 generated by over 1600 cars.
The project description, noise study, and other documents related to Rise Gold’s application can be obtained at https://www.mynevadacounty.com/2882/Application-Documents.
If you object to having an industrial-scale gold mine in our community, voice your objections to Matt Kelley, who is the Project Planner for the County, and your Nevada County District Supervisor. Mr. Kelley can be reached by phone at 530-265-1423 or by email at matt.kelley@co.nevada.ca.us. Your district supervisor can be found at https://www.mynevadacounty.com/731/Board-of-Supervisors. Demand an open, public process, full disclosure of the current physical and chemical hazards on the properties in question, and the negative impacts the mine will have on our community.