Two related gold mining projects have been proposed for lands just east of Drytown. One project will combine both surface and underground mining, along with a 1,000-ton-per-day milling operation. The other project, on land currently used for mining black slate, proposes to use one slate pit as a heap-leaching and disposal site for gold ore from the nearby California-Maryland mine.

The latter project is of great concern to us. Heap-leaching projects use a cyanide solution sprayed over crushed ore to chemically extract gold. In other areas, cyanide heap-leach mines have contaminated ground and surface water. If not properly fenced and netted, they are a real hazard to wildlife and birds. Last November, the voters of Montana, home to many cyanide heap-leach gold mines, voted to ban new heap-leaching mines and to limit expansion of existing projects.

The county is allowing the applicant for the Drytown projects to prepare its own Environmental Impact Report (EIR), which raises questions regarding the objectivity of the environmental review process. We have submitted a "scoping letter" requesting that issues of water quality and water pollution, wildlife safety, and other issues relating to the heap-leaching process be fully addressed in the EIR. We will watch this project with interest as it moves through the planning process.

An EIR is a document whose purpose is to disclose fully and objectively all the environmental effects of a project. The last applicant-prepared mining EIR, for Sutter Gold’s Lincoln Project, was an inadequate and self-serving document that made a mockery of the CEQA process. If you think the idea of project applicants preparing their own environmental review documents is bad policy for our county, please let your county supervisor know.