NEVADA CITY, Calif. May 13, 2024 – Rise Grass Valley has filed a petition for a peremptory writ of mandate against the County of Nevada, the Board of Supervisors and DOES 1-50 in the Superior Court of Nevada County. The writ seeks to overturn either the denial of vested rights for the historic Idaho-Maryland mine, or the decision to deny the application and use permit for the mine. Both decisions by the Board of Supervisors were unanimous.

Rise Gold Corp, incorporated in Nevada, has their principal offices in Vancouver, British Columbia. Rise Grass Valley lists their offices as being in Grass Valley, Calif. According to a release on Rise Gold’s website (the risegrassvalley.com website was unreachable at publication time) should the lawsuit be unsuccessful:

… Rise’s mineral estate will lose all value, which will allow Rise to bring a takings action against the County under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The remedy for an unconstitutional taking is the payment of just compensation, which is the fair market value of the property taken. Based on comparable mines and historic yield at the Idaho-Maryland Mine, Rise’s mineral estate is conservatively estimated to be worth at least $400 million.

Rise Gold news release dated May 13, 2024.

The news release carries the standard disclaimers, including “Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and information contained in this release.“

Kit Elliott, County Counsel for Nevada County, provided the following statement on the lawsuit:

We do not believe this lawsuit has merit. The process included several public hearings, thousands of written comments, days of public comment, and engagement with both the community and the applicant over the past four years.

Supervisors unanimously voted to deny Rise’s petition for vested rights because they felt that Rise failed to provide sufficient evidence to support that they had a vested right to mining operations. Rise decided to continue to pursue a conditional use permit, and Supervisors also unanimously decided to deny the project and took no action on the Final Environmental Impact Report. The Supervisor’s decision was consistent with the Planning Commission’s recommendation.

Kit Elliott, County Counsel

We expect a hearing date set will be set by the Superior Court of Nevada County in the coming days.