On Wednesday evening representatives of Environmental Science Associates (ESA), Grass Valley's EIR consultants, presented their final workshop prior to the release of a draft environmental impact report on Emgold Mining Corporation's (www.emgold.com) plan to reopen the old Idaho-Maryland underground hardrock gold mine, abandoned since 1956.
According to ESA consultant Jeff Harvey, the draft document should be ready for release to the public in late May or early June. The public will have 45-days to review and respond to the report before it goes to the planning commission.
The topic of Wednesday's meeting was traffic, air quality and cumulative impacts. About 50 people attended the meeting, including representatives of the mine. In addition to Harvey, ESA's Jennifer Johnson and Grass Valley Planning Director Tom Last were on hand to answer questions.
As was the case in the two previous informational meetings on the city's environmental review process, very little specific information on the mine was presented - leaving many questions posed by the audience unanswered. Several times during the presentation Harvey reminded people that the main purpose of these workshops is to "help you be better informed when the draft EIR comes out, so you understand the process. We don't have any conclusions yet."
He also explained that the EIR is not a decision-making document. The report will contain information compiled in accordance with CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) requirements. It will be up to the Grass Valley City Council to give the thumbs-up or down to Emgold's plan.
In fact, most of the information presented by ESA about the EIR process would be applicable to virtually any proposed development in Grass Valley, although Harvey acknowledged that Emgold's project is "a very unique and very large industrial project within city limits."
It is, indeed, an extremely controversial plan given the mine's location in a residential area as well as the unorthodox methods Emgold is proposing to dispose of 20-years of mine waste it will create. Emgold says it can turn half of its cyanidized tailings and waste rock into ceramic tiles for the consumer market; the other half would be dumped back into the mine shafts where the formation of acid mine drainage is a distinct possibility, long after mining ceases.
Emgold also wants to sell its waste rock as road base and aggregate, posing questions about the distribution of arsenic and heavy metals onto city and county roadways. But before any excavation can occur, Emgold would have to dewater 72 miles of flooded mine shafts. Residents have expressed concerns about the potential depletion and pollution of the underground aquifer and private wells, as well as the impacts of unseasonable mine water flows to Wolf Creek, a tributary to the Bear and Sacramento rivers.
Emgold is a penny stock mining company from Vancouver, B.C. that has been trading on the Toronto Venture Exchange since 1989. Should their plan be approved by the Grass Valley City Council, it will be Emgold's first mining operation, the only medium- to- large scale mine operation in the State of California, and the only one located within a city's boundaries.
All of the public documents on the mine, as well as the Power Point slide shows of the three city-sponsored workshops on the environmental review process, are available on the city's website. For specific information on Emgold's plans, residents can read the Master Environmental Assessment (June 2006) and the Notice of Preparation/Initial Study (Oct. 2007).The draft EIR is slated for completion in late spring.
