Press release 4/16/21
Mining Exploration Threatens Long Valley, Please Comment by May 6, 2021 to Stop the Proposed Project, says Sierra Club Range of Light Group
April 16, 2021 – Proposed mining exploration threatens the future of the scenic, economically, and ecologically important Long Valley area in Mono County and the Sierra Club Range of Light Group is encouraging local Eastern Sierra residents and organizations, as well as those that recreate in the Eastern Sierra, to speak up. Concerned citizens have until May 6, 2021 to participate in the current 30-day public scoping period for the proposed Long Valley Exploration Drilling Project proposed by Kore USA Ltd. (Kore Mining).
Kore Mining proposes to construct a total of fourteen drilling pads, measuring 30 feet by 50 feet each. Access to these drill pads will require re-opening roughly a third of a mile of road for the duration of the project. Impacts of this proposed project include: local quality of life, tourism, air quality, noise pollution, decimated habitat of local flora and fauna (including endangered sage grouse and local deer). The impacts of the exploration might be only the beginning, however. If the company finds a sufficient quantity of gold to mine, that activity could affect important habitats, create long lasting water pollution issues, and forever scar Long Valley.
Royal Gold drilled in this same place in the 1990s and others before Royal Gold did so in the 1980s. Companies searching for gold when the price of gold is high will plague us indefinitely. That is why it is time to amend the 1872 mining law to allow the U.S. Forest Service to deny a project when the harm outweighs the benefits.
If you live, work, or recreate in the Eastern Sierra and have concerns about the impact of this proposed project, or the prospects of larger scale mining in this scenic and important landscape, we encourage you to submit your comments by May 6, 2021 and ensure your concerns are included in the Inyo National Forest’s analysis. Let Inyo National Forest know you oppose categorical exclusion and request that Kore Mining provide an environmental assessment. Only those who provide comment by May 6, 2021 can continue to participate in the conversation of the proposed project beyond that date. If the project becomes a categorical exclusion there will be no other time to participate.
“As a Categorical Exclusion, this will be our only chance to comment on this project. The price of gold is high, making it more profitable to actually extract it. This may finally be the exploration that turns into an industrial-scale open pit mining operation that permanently scars this important landscape,” says Boulton, Chair of the Range of Light Group.
Submit comments electronically at the USFS website: https://cara.ecosystem-management.org/Public//CommentInput?Project=59294. If you cannot submit your comment on the project website, contact Colleen Garcia, Minerals Program Manager by email at [email protected] and/or by phone at (760) 920-0285.
About Range of Light Group
The Sierra Club Range of Light Group, part of the Sierra Club Toiyabe Chapter, represents the Sierra Club in Mono and Inyo Counties, a beautiful area rich in natural, scenic, and recreational values and benefits. We engage both our members and a wide array of local stakeholders in our work to safeguard our region’s diverse landscapes and outdoor opportunities. Membership and participation in the Range of Light Group is open to all interested in enjoying, protecting and exploring the Eastern Sierra.
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https://www.epa.gov/superfund/abandoned-mine-lands-site-information
Pele, the future of the valley. Really, another it’s the apocalypse coming the end of the world is near. What a load of bs. This is the type of hipocracy I was talking about. The only thing it’s hurting is your delicate sense of how you think the world should work.
Lydia, the world runs on products where their raw materials were mined out of the ground. Phones, computers, refrigerator’s, stoves, microwaves, cars. The list is endless. Your calling it greed but everybody benefits from mining everyone no exceptions. Even a small operation contributes to the growing demand for raw materials. It’s just ridiculous to think you can have all the creature comforts in your house and not have mining operations supplying the materials for them.
Geezo Phil I think you forgot to add the apocalypse to your list. To me I see jobs for the locals and taxes for the co. And you’re speculating the worst case scenario for when they leave. There’s all kinds of agency’s to make sure that doesn’t happen. These types of operations almost always pay well above minimum wage. I know there are people that would jump at chance to work there. They usually bring in managment to run the paperwork and business side of it but hire locals to fill the work crews. I’m guessing you don’t need a job maybe retired eh, but a lot of people do need the work. It benefits the workers and the economy. And you want to stop people from working. And please don’t give the it’s gonna destroy the planet bs. Theres mining operations old and new all over this area and the county is running just fine, no apocalypse here.
Gold digger, some of us actually care more about the beauty and integrity of the land than about temporary solvency. I understand that’s not a universal value, but I do hope decisions made in this generation can respect the rights of future generations, as well as the aesthetic of moment. We don’t have to prostitute ourselves to greed. There’s always another way.
I am interested in your thoughts regarding alternative energy sources. Much of the direction this country is heading will come down to storage (battery efficiency, battery storage, battery life and battery disposal). Battery technologies will center on minerals which will need to be mined. Battery disposal will most likely mimic disposal of nuclear material.
Gold digger, I do need a job, but not badly enough to sacrifice my values and the future of our valley. Stick with what you know: ie not grammar or environmental ethics.
This is a ploy, Kore Mining is well aware they have no chance in hell drilling at Hot Creek.
They have other locations in mind that are, possibly nearby and less threatening to the environment and ecology, where they will use the (Hot Creek) loss as leverage to succeed in exploratory drilling in those other locations.
Other professions operate in a very similar way.
Comparing a gold mining operation to a oil refinery,I’m surprised u didn’t throw nuclear waste disposal site in there also. Mining has been a part of inyo and mono counties since before there were inyo and mono co. And still is today. You enjoy the benefits of mining while complaining about mining. There’s a word for that it starts with h and ends in ipocracy hahaha.
There is a big problem with tourism, it brings all sorts of people to the area, both good and bad.
With the majority of SUV, Truck, ATV, UTV and motorcycle adds showing a never ending stream of buy this and you too can race across the open desert, clime any hill, splash across streams and throw up lots of dust and rocks. With many of the adds filmed in the Eastern Sierra.
The tourist coming for this fake view of life are destroying the very ground you want to save. I see lines of Jeeps, SUVs, UTVs on trailers and lots of of tracks left behind in places that should be off-limits to all the above. This is an evasion by the very same tourist that some hope will leave some money as they blast past.
Be careful what you ask for.
At least the miner has to comply with environmental laws and is held to clean up after the work is done.
Tourism and access to our public lands is another discussion. The administration of mining based on laws from the1800’s is this discussion. The idea of a yield of less than a gram of gold from more than a ton of rock and soil makes this mining proposal unsustainable compared to the damage to the lands by this mining operation. Reclamation is never completed when the operation is played out or goes bust, leaving behind an abandoned infrastructure and scars on the land like holes in the ground, tailings piled high not to mention the disruption of the life cycle of plants and animals at the site and along the roads carved to access the operation. There is the idea of historical mining operations in the Eastern Sierra but look at those sites and what’s left. Compound the damage with so called modern mining techniques and you will have an open pit hole in the ground, pollution of rivers, streams and aquifers none of it worth any exploitation by a Canadian Corporation. I say let them look to speculate and degrade the earth in Canada. My share of these publicly owned grams of gold are good right where they are and need to stay undisturbed and in the ground.
I get your point, but the story is about saving the landscape so it will draw people to the area (i.e. tourist) who would spend money while they are here. Again pushing tourism as the economic engine we all need.
My point is tourism has it’s own pitfalls, like seeing the Alabama Hills full of campers and toys trampling the very ground they park and drive on. These tourist are coming by the thousands to this newly discovered area thanks to COVID 19 and now that they have found the area they will be back with more friends. Like at Jawbone.
This invasion will have a greater impact to the area because it is so wide spread and way more people and equipment than a mining group.
Today’s mining laws require an approved reclamation plan and the money for the reclamation is payed up front before you get a permit to start work.
Where is the money for reclamation for the damage from tourist?
Complaining about mining on your phone or tablet or PC That is filled with metals and minerals that have been mined out of the ground. There’s some environmental logic for ya.
You drive a car, do you want live adjacent to an oil refinery? You use household chemicals, do you want live in a chemical plant? You use a toilet, do you want to live immediately downwind of a sewage treatment facility? Should we allow oil drilling in Yosemite Valley? Where would you draw the line?
Absurdities aside, this is a region people come to specifically for the beauty and the many outdoor experiences available. And it’s these things that drive the local economies. Ignoring this for a few quick and fleeting bucks for a company with no ties to this area doesn’t sound like a smart idea.
As a geologist who works in the mining industry I think I have a unique perspective on this, and I’ve been following the project for a little while. First off, I really can’t believe that a company would invest in this project given its proximity to Mammoth and the general environmental leanings of the population out here. Having a social license to operate is arguably one of the most important parts of a potential exploration project. It seems to me that the Kore mining people are either really incompetent for trying to explore here or really naïve for thinking that the value of their project can overcome this.
Second, it’s really interesting how things change over ~100 years or so. Mammoth (at least, white settlement) exists because of mining; we all know the history. Today, the people who live in the sierra (most?) are likely not interested in any kind of mining occurring here. Honestly it really wasn’t that long ago that mining was important to the Eastern Sierra economy. The Pine Creek Mine out of Bishop was the major employer (and probably, tax payer) in Inyo County until what, like the late 80s? Certainly from the 50s through the 70s. “Uncle Carbide” was the nickname, after the owner Union Carbide.
So that brings me to my third thought, which is that inevitably, the exploration company will talk about the potential high-paying jobs, tax revenue, etc. that would come out of mining. This is all true, I mean even basic jobs at mines tend to pay much better than their non-mining equivalents. Learn to drive a haul truck, you can make a very comfortable living, even for Mammoth!
But, the question is, is it all worth it? And I tend to think not… people value Long Valley for a lot of different things these days and I really don’t think there will be support for exploration, let alone actual mine development. This company is probably trying to drill out their project, build a resource and then sell it to a larger company and take the profits. It’s fairly rare for junior companies like this one to go on and develop a mine.
Anyways, curious to see what others think about this.
Appreciate the perspective.
With property prices doing what they’re presently doing in the area (even if many of the buyers are coming in with the Prop 19 screw rural counties discount) – I can’t imagine Mono County is in dire need of the tax income.
Local higher paying jobs are always a need, but not likely to see any sort of conversion of the local workforce – Kore will be bringing in an existing crew – and likely already exacerbating an already pricey market.
No way locals are rallying behind this – no need for more real estate demand, and a snowball’s chance in Hell (more aptly just April/May these days?) that this proposal is yielding anything net beneficial for the community.
Thank you for sharing a view from inside the industry.
While mining was a big component of local economies 100 years ago, times change. Today the gold and silver comes in the form of visitors. The scars and inevitable environmental damage that mining operations leave in their wake would not coexist well with this region’s current economic engine.
As far as jobs go, those would likely be temporary. And if other projects are any indication, most of the workers would be brought in from outside of the area to do the work. I don’t see those jobs having an appreciable impact on the current local residents.
This proposed project will likely be very unpopular with visitors and most locals alike.