fish and dust

[2cmorau]

ok folks no poli-ticks

http://reclaimingthesierra.org/wp-c...Fish-and-Dust-Monohan-Final-Nevada-County.pdf

Augoldminer: completely agree with what you posted in the other close thread
I did two semisters on geology, my instrutor said just what you stated
the asbestos here in California was safe, it was the stuff from Canada, where we get it from, that was a problem
but soon we will not be able to run a drywasher here in california
John, i should have said here in California in the origanal post LOL

 

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[Oregon Viking]

I here that these things are a "mercury vacuum"

 

[Hard Prospector]

Drywashers and dust production? Give me a break! We've all seen how much dust one BLM truck kicks up hauling a$$ down a dirt road, I say have those knuckle heads set the good example for a "cleaner atmosphere" by exchanging their patrol vehicles this summer for zero emission mountain bikes.

 

[GoldenNerd]

Down here in San Jose we cannot eat the local fish either. That has nothing to do with gold mining but instead from the mercury mines in the South Bay. The heap-leaching up in the Sierras released -insane- amounts of mercury. I can totally understand that they don't want it disturbed and "back into the ecosystem." Oh yeah, and mercury advisories are in place for salt-water predatory fish as well. When my daughters want to fish and then eat the trout I have to tell them no, sorry, the fish are poisonous around here.

I did like that her proposal was more notification and possible cleanup. That's at least a step in the right direction. Get that crap cleaned up and open the lands back up to dredging.

No, small-scale dredging by a few people wouldn't massively impact the Sierras. Neither would a few high-bankers. The problem becomes when that single 4" dredge hose becomes 2000 people a season. 8000 inches per second stirring up the settled mercury which then flows downstream further and into the towns/cities. And down into the delta where it's pumped onto the farmer's fields (and thus, into the food supply.)

I live around mercury mines. We're not even allowed to swim in most of the lakes around here. It sucks. I wouldn't wish that on the towns up there either, and I don't want it in our drinking water, in our food or anyplace else.

Everyone hates on the Greenies but, really, we should be rip-****-pissed at the old miners and corporations who poisoned everything and put us here in the first place. I know I am.

 

[rodoconnor]

And how would you suggest we clean up the Hg other than by suction dredging? By dredging, we aren't aerating the mercury and spraying it into the atmosphere.It's a very heavy metal. It is captured in our sluice boxes

 

[Hard Prospector]

The only practical and "environmentally friendly" way to clean-up a creek or river of heavy metals and man made garbage is through suction dredge mining.

 

[GoldenNerd]

Not all of it is captured, just as not all gold is, and mercury is nasty, nasty stuff even at low concentrations. I don't know where the lines cross between "let it lie" and "suction dredging pulls out enough and captures enough to make the runoff not dangerous."

No one knows where those lines cross, so they're taking the paranoid route. Whether it's the correct route is, obviously, up for debate but their stance is "anything is more than zero" and there's a lot at stake. "Sorry, no more beef - the cattle have been drinking the water again." "Sorry, the salmon's too tainted .. don't eat too much." "Oh, you live in the Sierras ... here, let me sell you some bottled water..." "The runoff has reached the ocean .... sorry abalone, crab and seafood in general." "Sorry your kids have issues, we opened up mining again some of it got away because 50% of the population is of below-average intelligence and something happened." "One of the mining operations had an accident and released 40 million tons of sediment downstream." "All the loose tailing on the creeks were washed downstream in yesterday's flood, far more than if it was undisturbed."

Life happens. Maybe dredging is the best way. But if it's not, the downsides are potentially huge from being wrong.

 

[Duckwalk]

Your statement has plenty of hypothetical "oops" situations. The only thing i have to say is "PFFFT", which is basically what my 4 year old daughter says when i try to make a point that i later realize was pointless and terribly delivered.

 

[rodoconnor]

My ancestors were hardrock miners and bucketline dredgers. I am hardly pissed at them. Those guys were men that figured out a way to get the job done. They were miners not whiners. San Jose Kal was the site of the first Spanish mine in Kal. They mined mercury that was oozing out of the beach sands . Completely natural. It can be found there to this day. Same as Long Beach.

 

[Aufisher]

Let's just leave the 99% of the mercury in the water and trust our government. Lol

 

[dredgeman]

Not all of it is captured, just as not all gold is, and mercury is nasty, nasty stuff even at low concentrations. I don't know where the lines cross between "let it lie" and "suction dredging pulls out enough and captures enough to make the runoff not dangerous."

No one knows where those lines cross, so they're taking the paranoid route. Whether it's the correct route is, obviously, up for debate but their stance is "anything is more than zero" and there's a lot at stake. "Sorry, no more beef - the cattle have been drinking the water again." "Sorry, the salmon's too tainted .. don't eat too much." "Oh, you live in the Sierras ... here, let me sell you some bottled water..." "The runoff has reached the ocean .... sorry abalone, crab and seafood in general." "Sorry your kids have issues, we opened up mining again some of it got away because 50% of the population is of below-average intelligence and something happened." "One of the mining operations had an accident and released 40 million tons of sediment downstream." "All the loose tailing on the creeks were washed downstream in yesterday's flood, far more than if it was undisturbed."

Life happens. Maybe dredging is the best way. But if it's not, the downsides are potentially huge from being wrong.

So the Sierra Fund is dredging to get mercury out of the reservoir. A cutter head dredge with 78 percent recovery. The Sierra Fund is receiving your money to help with the project.
The Sierra Fund are working to develop the approved equipment and funding stream (you) to do exactly what the 3200 - 9000 dredgers were already doing. Oh and with a lot better efficiency.
If that's ok then carry on, and send them a check to help out.

 

[Fullpan]

GoldenNerd - if you want to become better informed on the mercury issue, there is a sticky note thread on the "dredging and hi-banking" sub-forum. I attached
this link which is covered on page 1 of the sticky thread. Please add further comments here, if you wish, after reading.

Mercury Recovery from Recreational Gold Miners | Region 9: Innovations | US EPA

The last sentence is somewhat telling of green politics involved - what happened to the free program ?

 

[Fullpan]

Down here in San Jose we cannot eat the local fish either. That has nothing to do with gold mining but instead from the mercury mines in the South Bay. The heap-leaching up in the Sierras released -insane- amounts of mercury. I can totally understand that they don't want it disturbed and "back into the ecosystem." Oh yeah, and mercury advisories are in place for salt-water predatory fish as well. When my daughters want to fish and then eat the trout I have to tell them no, sorry, the fish are poisonous around here.

I did like that her proposal was more notification and possible cleanup. That's at least a step in the right direction. Get that crap cleaned up and open the lands back up to dredging.

No, small-scale dredging by a few people wouldn't massively impact the Sierras. Neither would a few high-bankers. The problem becomes when that single 4" dredge hose becomes 2000 people a season. 8000 inches per second stirring up the settled mercury which then flows downstream further and into the towns/cities. And down into the delta where it's pumped onto the farmer's fields (and thus, into the food supply.)

I live around mercury mines. We're not even allowed to swim in most of the lakes around here. It sucks. I wouldn't wish that on the towns up there either, and I don't want it in our drinking water, in our food or anyplace else.

Everyone hates on the Greenies but, really, we should be rip-****-pissed at the old miners and corporations who poisoned everything and put us here in the first place. I know I am.

The greenies have truthfully documented that mercury migrates over the dams, and down the rivers in high-water events. So, whether we like it or not , the mercury "is in the eco-system" and its coming to the Bay area. The question becomes what to do about it. You can donate your tax dollars to grant money
for non-profits to do the clean-up job. If you think that's best, consider 9 million to clean 200,000 tons of sediment at Combie reservoir for at most 150lbs of mercury. Now do it again in three years. Now do it for Rollins res. - every three years - now do it for Scotts Flat, Englebright, Clementine, Camp Far West,
Lake Wildwood, and 15 or so other contaminated reservoirs. Now dig a little deeper into your pocket cause there's the Yuba river to clean at the rate of 9 million per 200,000 tons, and about 10 other major rivers - don't forget the tributaries. Or you can believe the dredgers who have proven they get 98% of
this nasty stuff - for free. Your choice.

 

[GoldenNerd]

@Duckwalk - you should have your daughter give some reading comprehension classes. Making "PFFFT" statements to a post which states, verbatim, "maybe dredging is the best way" only makes you look stupid.

I'm not anti-dredging by any means - just hoping that some way is found (small-scale dredging or otherwise) to not severely impact those downstream. No one could ever be stupid enough to allow an oil tanker to run around in Alaska, right? Or be careless enough to run into the piling on the Golden Gate Bridge. Mother Nature never throws curveballs, like a 14m tsunami, at a 10m seawall which protects a nuclear reactor. No one's ever cut corners for a little extra profit at the expense of the environment, right?

Right?

@rodoconnor - Miners not whiners? I'm just bringing up the few hundred thousand people directly downstream. And the food-crops for millions. Call it whining if you want to but more money's been made via agriculture in this state than in mining. Maybe the farmers should call the miners "whiners" because they're scrapping and fumbling and chasing Au instead of farming (with guaranteed income to boot - $42.6Billion statewide in 2012 alone.) Besides, they (farmers) want the right to poison the water supply with fertilizer runoff instead of letting the miners do it with Hg or NaCN.

@Everyone else - huge thanks for the constructive posts and information. It's been very informative and, frankly, very interesting.

-GN

 

[Duckwalk]

Yes, perhaps. you know because 4 year olds can read well... my comment wasn't in regards to your opinions on the topic, only that it was pointless to put that many long winded examples and that it was terribly delivered.

 

[rodoconnor]

Also he has never responded as to how he would clean up the Hg other than dredging. Maybe he has ingested too much mercury.

 

[Hard Prospector]

Before the negativity escalates, I say its time to let it go. Better to save one's energy for moving more material.

 

[Hoser John]

The state of california bulletin 191 on minerals production specifically states that the coastal range mountains along the length of kalif are the true mercury culprits as cinnabar leaching everywhere. Sooooo much bs on old times when the real STILL contaminating problem is mother natures deposits,but blame the miners of old as always. True fact is mercury was almost as expensive as gold at the time. Yes they lost some,Malakoff in particular but wtf who is perfect and sniveling over past practices is sheer insanity as REDUEX only happen in pipedreams- Dredgers are the answer and NOT the problem-John

 

[Goldwasher]

Wow, for a self proclaimed "Nerd" you are extremely uninformed on the facts.....There is zero proof in hundreds of studies that show any negative affect from dredging....More stream bed material migrates and is disturbed by annual run off in one season than all the dredges running from the 1980's to present combined.The non gold bearing waterways far out number the gold bearing ones and all have their pollution issues and are affected by the regions industries and agriculture. Even in states with zero gold mining. Storms move and disturb mercury...dredges remove it. The amount of mercury that makes it back in the river is literally un-measurable I put the challenge to you right now to find the report and post a link that refutes anything I or my fellow well informed miners have stated here regarding the issue. You might as well just start donating to C.B.D. as you are no help to any of us here....and to insult a guys four year old ? Glad folks like you live downstream.....Maybe this has gone to far I may get a time out......maybe this thread will get locked....the positive outcome we won't have to read what you have to say anymore

 

[Duckwalk]

Wow, for a self proclaimed "Nerd" you are extremely uninformed on the facts.....There is zero proof in hundreds of studies that show any negative affect from dredging....More stream bed material migrates and is disturbed by annual run off in one season than all the dredges running from the 1980's to present combined.The non gold bearing waterways far out number the gold bearing ones and all have their pollution issues and are affected by the regions industries and agriculture. Even in states with zero gold mining. Storms move and disturb mercury...dredges remove it. The amount of mercury that makes it back in the river is literally un-measurable I put the challenge to you right now to find the report and post a link that refutes anything I or my fellow well informed miners have stated here regarding the issue. You might as well just start donating to C.B.D. as you are no help to any of us here....and to insult a guys four year old ? Glad folks like you live downstream.....Maybe this has gone to far I may get a time out......maybe this thread will get locked....the positive outcome we won't have to read what you have to say anymore

I tried to click "Like" as many times as i could before it refreshed lol. only gave me one like though