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Emgold, a Canadian junior mining company, has filed a plan to re-open the Idaho-Maryland Mine within the city limits of Grass Valley, California, and to also build and operate a ceramics factory and / or crush mine waste rock and sell it as aggregate all within 1 mile of downtown Grass Valley and surrounded by homes and businesses on all sides.
CLAIM-GV has carefully and completely evaluated the plan, in its current state, and we do NOT believe this project is a good idea for Grass Valley or Nevada County. Please evaluate and examine the information we have gathered here so you can decide for yourself.
CURRENT STATUS: (As of April, 2010.) The first Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) on the proposed reopening of the Idaho Maryland Mine (IMM) was prepared during 2008 and submitted for public review at the end of Oct. 2008. Comments were due by Jan. 20, 2009. The comments that were submitted have been indexed by CLAIM and are presented here. There were approximately 188 comments submitted, of which over 80% were negative.
These comments were reviewed by the City of Grass Valley, the lead agency, and in Aug. 2009, the city concluded that the initial DEIR was inadequate. Also, in parallel, Emgold seems to have concluded that changes were needed to the project description. However, essentially, the City decided that the DEIR needed major revisions, and that these revisions were significant enough that the document had to be submitted for another round of public comments.
ESA, the consultant to the City, who wrote the original DEIR based on input from Emgold, has completed a draft work plan for proceeding with the revision. However, Emgold has no money to continue the process. Until Emgold can entice someone to purchase more shares of their penny stock, the process will likely stay right where it sits, in limbo.
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In March 2010, the owners of the Blue Lead Mine submitted a request to the Nevada County Planning Commission to waive the need for a Use Permit, based upon the claim that the mine has a “vested right” to operate that was established in 1954. This would allow them to avoid conforming to operational rules that the county may impose. To qualify for this “vested right”, the applicants needed to prove that they had the right in 1954, and that they had continued to operate since then under certain criteria.
The Nevada County Planning Department staff provided strong evidence on the basis of which to deny their request that they be granted a “vested rights“ waiver. The staff report recommended that the Planning Commission deny Blue Lead's request. The burden of proof for such a waiver is on the applicant to demonstrate that the mine has not been inactive for any period of time. Staff identified substantial periods of time since 1954 during which no activity had occurred. In addition, there were other criteria that needed to be met in order for the mine to avoid being considered “abandoned” which the mine did not satisfy.
CURRENT STATUS: On May 27, we again filled the Planning Commission hearing room. Planning Commission staff again presented strong information that vesting was not warranted. We also argued persuasively to deny Blue Lead a vested right. After about 4 hours of discussion, the commission voted 4-1 to deny vested rights to the Blue Lead mine. We would like to thank all of our members and supporters who attended the meeting and spoke out on this issue. You can find out more here Blue Lead detail page
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