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Thread: Yosemite vs. Cyanide

  1. #21

    Re: Yosemite vs. Cyanide

    Well, it's safe then, as there is no mining in National Parks and Wilderness Areas. Ah, that is assuming that the 4 million plus visitors to Yosemite every year have no impact.

  2. #22

    Re: Yosemite vs. Cyanide

    Quote Originally Posted by JC Kuba View Post
    Growing up in Butte, who's Berkeley Pit is the country's biggest superfund site(do they still have to use loudspeakers to keep birds from landing in the polluted water and dying?), I'm sure you're well aware of what happens, when due to greed or ignorance, miners destroy the environment around their mines for generations. Libby would be another good example.
    I would argue that the lifestyle that the last few generations have enjoyed didn't leave future generations with resources that are as easy to extract without much greater cost and environmental devastation.

    - JC
    Some of the extensive environmental carnage was done well before there was a semblance of any environmental concerns among the general population or the government. It happened all over the country. The Great Depression challenged many with finding a way to stay alive and as a result, jobs were at the top of the priority list. Shortly thereafter during WW2 the Butte Hill provided nearly 25% of the minerals that the United States needed in this conflict. Like the radioactive water flowing in streams near Los Alamos New Mexico during Openheimers tenure there priorities were dialed into another set of objectives and we are paying the price for this perspective now.

    Can't change what has happened in years past. What we can do is learn from those disasters and find a way to mitigate the adverse consequences of minerals extraction and processing to the highest degree possible.
    Last edited by Michael Kadillak; 19-Feb-2011 at 19:51. Reason: typo

  3. #23
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: Yosemite vs. Cyanide

    I should have said that this was in Mono County, not Inyo ... nonetheless it's a very
    big county too. On the east slope of the Sierra and even some of the western slope
    the greatest amount of mining was for tungsten, not gold, although the two metals
    are often found in the same ore and extracted from the same mines. Right at the
    beginning of the nuclear age and cold war the price of tungsten allegedly exceeded
    that of gold for awhile, so miners would go to ridulous lengths to go after it, much
    like uranium miners of the era. For those of you who know the eastern Sierra, there
    is a remnant of a jeep trail (what's left of it is now a hiking trail) that went clear
    up McGee Creek to just just below the summit of Mt Baldwin, where the mine was.
    It's hard to imagine that much work being put in. But miners were a persistent lot,
    even if their efforts rarely paid off financially. The Bodie hills are not strictly in the
    Sierra Nevada, geologically, but in a small sub-range more properly belonging to
    the Great Basin.

  4. #24
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: Yosemite vs. Cyanide

    Chauncey - I've certainly been to places outside of Moab in Utah, for example, where thousand of trail-bikers and hikers do seem to have done a lot more damage
    than even the uranium miners. But where gold mining was extensive, as in the Mother Lode area of the Sierra, the environmental and demographic changes were
    vast and permanent, including the outright genocide of the native peoples. That was
    a long time ago. But in the case of Yosemite Park, probably 95% of the tourists visit
    only 5% of the park. There are extensive areas where footprints are rare; and this
    is even more the case with the wilderness areas and parks to the south of it, where
    the mountains are even higher and the canyon deeper. But pollution at the headwaters of something can cause a lot of trouble. Again, I really don't know the
    specifics of this case around Bodie, but the era of reckless mining and clearcutting in
    the Sierra is just plain over - there isn't that much left to either mine or profitably cut.

  5. #25
    http://www.spiritsofsilver.com tgtaylor's Avatar
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    Re: Yosemite vs. Cyanide

    Its been estimated that only 10% of the gold in the Sierra Nevada was extracted during the gold rush - that 90% remains undiscovered - and ever since meeting a miner at a Friends of Bodie Day (he was a member and volunteer) I was under the impression that gold was being actively mined just outside the park boundaries. In fact during that miner told me about them finding a 30 oz nugget and I believe that one of the rangers affirmed that the mining company wanted to mine Bodie itself.

    Back when gold was $35 and oz, I was told that it was possible to synthesize gold in the laboratory but at a cost of $600/oz which then wasn't economically feasible. But at the current going rate of $1400 an oz...?

    There are so many scams these days that it sometimes make you wonder just what isn't.

    Thomas

  6. #26
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: Yosemite vs. Cyanide

    Scam is an understatement. The biggest problem is grandfathered inholdings in
    certain otherwise designated areas. Most of that Bodie area is probably in Toiybe
    Natl Forest, so not necessarily under highly restricted status, though Bodie Historical
    Park itself is, and apparently is not one of the state parks slated for closure to the
    public due to budget issues. I'd imagine it generates enough tourist revenue to pay
    its own way. Hypothetical gold and recoverable gold are two different subjects. There is plenty of gold around, but if even the huge modernized Pine Creek mine
    couldn't break even, that gives you a clue. The "easiest" gold is being vacuumed by
    scuba divers from the bottoms of Mother Lode rivers, but even that is a controversial and restricted practice. To get to uptapped spots, a buddy of mine and
    me would set up block and tackle and lower a big sluice box down cliffs, then form
    a winch bucket-brigade, with one of us shoveling black sand at the waters edge.
    A day of backbreaking work would yield about an ounce of gold - which was worth
    about twenty bucks at the time!

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