Click
here to tell a friend about this page!
Toxic Gold
September 1, 2002 --
Ninety Percent of the Gold Ever Mined has been
Mined Since 1848 and Today Nevada Produces Almost
Three-Quarters of the Nation's Gold Supply
When the Gold Rush ended in California,
it moved across the Sierras to Nevada. This began
with geologists locating the 'Carlin Trend' in Nevada's
Humboldt Basin. The Carlin Trend is 50 by 5 miles
across northeast Nevada' s Humboldt Basin and bears
"invisible" gold, which became profitable
to mine in the 1980's with the rise in gold prices
and the introduction of cyanide heap-leaching. This
modern mining is highly toxic. Gold ore often contains
sulfur, forming sulfuric acid from exposure to air
and water. This acid attracts other metals such as
arsenic, antimony, lead, and mercury.
A copious amount of water is needed
in gold mining to 'dewater' the mine sites by pumping
out underground water. Some of this is pumped into
the Humboldt River and some irrigates alfalfa fields
- some to process the ore. Some is pumped back into
the ground but by this time it has picked up cyanide,
acids, and heavy metals.
As part of its campaign, Okanogan
Highlands Alliance started bottling 'Buckthorn' water.
Their slogan is 'Pure Water Is More Precious Than
Gold' . This is a true statement; the 2000 gallons
of water that is required to produce an ounce of gold
worth about $280 is, in itself, worth $3,540 when
bottled.
Gold mining forms methyl mercury,
which accumulates in living tissue, in streams and
lakes, and is capable of causing brain damage. It
is a danger, especially in the South Yuba River, Deer
Creek, and Bear River. It shows up in elevated levels
in the fish.
Ronald Churchill, who surveyed historical
data in order to arrive at an estimate for his employer,
the State Division of Mines & Geology, reported
that early hydraulic miners "lost" as much
as one pound of mercury for every three or four ounces
of gold they mined.
An ordinary household thermometer
contains one-half gram of mercury, which would contaminate
a twenty five-acre lake to make its fish unsafe to
eat. This one-pound of mercury would fill about 900
thermometers. Churchill estimates that gold miners
in California, for example, lost about 12.8 million
pounds of mercury in the 19th and early 20th centuries,
80 to 90% of it in the Sierra Nevadas - enough to
fill more than 11.5 billion household thermometers
- most of it still being out there. Somewhere.
Mercury escapes into the environment
wherever it is mined and processed; spilled during
handling, escaping up the chimney during refining,
absorbed into the bricks of the refinery furnaces.
The past is still alive. To remove
all the mercury from the watershed is unrealistic.
The EPA has already spent millions of dollars attempting
to clean up mercury contamination. This is not only
costly but also time-consuming; the EPA has years
to go to clean up part of the contamination.
Contaminated streams and lakes are
not the only areas of mercury contamination. Land
use is also affected.
The Nevada County area is trying to
make the transition from an economy based on natural
resources extraction, such as mining and logging,
to a tourist-based economy. It seems ironic that while
fishing is one of the attractions, the mining legacy
is also attracting visitors to the museums, parks,
shops, and inns where, if they eat much of the gold
country's fish, they might be poisoned.
*************
Sources: John Krist of the Ventura
County Star
Scripps-McClatchey Western Service
Rebecca Solnit, Sierra Magazine
For Additional Information, Please
Contact:
Margot B
E-mail: margotb@margotbwritersforum.com
http://margotbwritersforum.com
http://margotbworldnews.com
About the Author Margot
B [Margotsweb Designs]
http://margotbwritersforum.com
http://margotbworldnews.com
http://www.worldisround.com/home/margotb/index.html
http://website4free.vze.com
http://larrybphotography.tk
http://nuchatlaht.tk
