[CPEO-BIF] Goldfields (California)

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

[Gold mines may seem a lot different from manufactured gas plant sites, 
old auto plants, and former railyards, but they are just one more 
variation on the brownfields theme. - LS]


In New California Gold Rush, Old Mines Reopen

By JESSE McKINLEY
New York Times
February 10, 2011

SUTTER CREEK, Calif. - Standing in a cramped, slanted and slippery 
crevice some 500 feet below the earth's surface, David Cochrane turned 
his eyes to a ribbon of marbled quartz - mainly gray, amber and white - 
and found the one hue he was actually looking for.

...

It was gold, and if people like Mr. Cochrane have their way, gold will 
soon be big business again in California's Mother Lode, in the same area 
of the Sierra - and occasionally the same mines - where the old-time 
prospectors once used pickaxes, ore carts and burros to chase their riches.

...

And while today's methods are safer, Izzy Martin, chief executive of the 
Sierra Fund, a nonprofit group devoted to preservation of the Sierra 
Nevada, says there are several challenges to mining old mines, including 
what previous companies might have left behind.

"There's a lot of toxic materials in there," Ms. Martin said. "And you 
have to clean it up."

...


For the entire article, see
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/us/11gold.html?_r=1

--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org



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