Once again, Rise Gold’s attempts to greenwash a bad project have been revealed. They’re pitching the Centennial Site cleanup as a benefit to the community, but the proposed plan reveals they’re only trying to do the minimum so they can dump more mine waste. Kudos to the coalition team led by CEA Foundation’s President, Ralph Silberstein. Their public comments show why the plan is deeply flawed. Supporting documents are linked below.
About this project
Rise Gold owns two above-ground properties; the Centennial site and the Brunswick site. The cleanup plan for the 44 acres of contaminated mine tailings at the Centennial site was recently posted for public comments. The plan, known as a Remedial Action Plan (RAP), has been developed under the authority of the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC). This has thus far been treated as a separate project, independent of Rise Gold’s Mine proposal. Although, they need to clean it up even if the mine project is not approved.
Rise Gold was apparently planning to use the cleanup as an opportunity to also prepare the site for the dumping of mine waste. This would have entailed destroying much more habitat and wetlands than would normally be necessary to do the cleanup. But thanks to the diligence of the coalition research team, the flaws of this approach were laid bare.
Multiple voices submitted comments on the proposed RAP, indicating that if damage to wetlands and additional habitat is being done to accommodate mine waste, then to be legal the Centennial project should be included as part of the Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) for the Mine project, and not treated separately and buried within the cleanup project.
The team, led by CEA Foundation (the sponsor of MineWatch), included significant contributions and analysis from environmental law firm Shute, Mihaly, and Weinberger, along with members of the Wolf Creek Community Alliance, The Sierra Fund, the California Native Plant Society, and others.
What will the outcome be? We don’t know yet, but it does seem likely that request will impact the timeline for the release of the DEIR as State and County officials work to define their next steps and/or expand the scope of the project analysis.
Learn more
Read the CEA Foundation comment letter.
Read why we're concerned about the wetlands.
Read the extensive legal analysis from Shute, Mihaly, and Weinberger, the highly respected land use & environmental law firm hired by CEA Foundation.
Read the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board comment letter.
Learn about how this project is related to Rise Gold's proposal to reopen the Idaho-Maryland Mine.
https://www.minewatchnc.org/dumps-mine-waste
View the DTSC website for the Remedial Action Plan (RAP).
