Letters to the Editor

Mining lacks “heart of gold”

Dear Editor:

After educating myself about modern-day gold mining, as a self-appointed Paula Revere, I wrote several Op-Eds 10 years ago when it was brought to my attention that Canada’s Royal Gold was on its eighth USFS “categorical exemption” from environmental impacts for exploratory drilling at Hot Creek.

What was mentioned during the Mono County Board of Supervisors’ Sept. 21 agenda item on the shortsighted and misleadingly named “Mono County Economic Development Act of 2010” (aka HR 6129), errantly referred to as “cyanide heat bleaching” is actually known as “cyanide heap leaching.”

Huge open pits are scooped out, the ore piled in hill-sized heaps on impermeable (provided it’s not ripped or torn in the process) sheeting, and then cyanide solution is sprayed 24/7 over the heaps to leach the low-grade ore of its gold. The gold is separated from the cyanide solution, which is reused to continue the leaching.

To say the dangers to groundwater, air quality and wildlife inherent in open pit/cyanide heap leach gold mining are great is an understatement of the first magnitude.

The easy gold is gone. Royal Gold’s ultimate plan required a pit larger than the town of Mammoth Lakes to salvage enough gold to make the venture pay. (The exploratory drilling samples assayed at 0.018 ounces/ton.). The Hot Creek pit would have been located at the site of absolutely world-class fly fishing and the headwaters of L.A.’s water supply, as well as over one of the most seismically active areas on the West Coast.

Incidentally, at one public hearing, every photo Royal Gold showed of its “opportunity in the Eastern Sierra” could have been a picture postcard.  Tourism is sustainable. Mining isn’t.

Google “boom and bust mining economies” for some background on who really benefits from modern-day gold mining.

Elizabeth  Tenney
Mammoth Lakes
Editor’s Note: Thanks for the clarification. Bad editing job. Should’ve caught that.

Courage … or the absence of it?

Dear Editor:

“Courage” was the word used in a recent letter to the editor to describe the Mammoth Town Council’s action to terminate three of the Town’s most experienced, knowledgeable employees. The only courage that was exhibited at that Council meeting was by two compassionate women, Anita Hatter and Leigh Gaasch, who both spoke against that precipitous action, especially the manner in which it was carried out.

More courage? How about that shown by those employees who sat there while their positions and service were publicly degraded. And how about the fact that they then stood before a packed house and delivered staff reports for the benefit of the very people who had just axed them in order to make them look good?

How about the absence of courage? No courage was evident in the way the Council publicly and embarrassingly terminated these people. This was nothing more than a political hatchet job by Council people trying to look tough by responding to anti-government sentiment. Remember, the Town Council approved these position and salaries. It was the Council who recognized these employees’ expertise over the years and approved their promotions. Now they go out with the trash! There were dozens of other ways to save the money that may (or may not, depending on what the Council does next) have saved these actions. The fact is the budget was misrepresented. The budget is balanced, revenues were underestimated and there currently is a reserve fund. And did they not just rescind furlough days for all staff members?

Of the Council members who participated in this action, two are the very people who created these positions, the very people who created the budget crisis in the first place, the very people who, in fact, have created every problem we see with the Town today. Now they take the easy way out: blame the employees and managers they hired to carry out their wrong-headed policies. Those two Council members should now take the road of the people they have axed and resign for the good of the community. Now THAT would take courage.

I know Brad Koehn, Karen Johnston and Mike Grossblatt. They have served loyally; their families contribute year after year to the community and they still do. The Council’s failure to truly recognize their service, its failure to take steps to avoid humiliating them (on local television no less) was crass, disrespectful and an insult. It belittled our community. Far from an act of courage, it was a showing of how classless people can be as they seek to appease a political constituency for their own benefit.

Sharon Carkeet
Mammoth Lakes

Who’s the bad bear?

Dear Editor:

What is the town of Mammoth thinking? They are PAYING some guy to run around in a faux uniform, with a faux badge and a faux position to chase bears and then participate in the kill?

As I recall, this was a bear (Blondie)  that there was a place for in Colorado.  She had been a neighborhood bear (beloved) and then was set to be killed thanks to a depredation permit signed by the then-Mayor – when she suddenly disappeared.

Where has she been since? Has someone had her confined?

Fish and Game said they never killed her. Odd that she suddenly shows up 8 or so weeks ago – ravenously hungry and Steve Searles tracks her down for the police department and she was killed. Surely, he knew who this bear was. What was Bear-With-Us.org doing about this situation? Were they aware this was Blondie?

If there was any bear that deserved to be relocated, it was Blondie. Ann Bryant from the Tahoe Bear League had a place for her as well as Bear-With-Us. Shame on Steve Searles, on the town of Mammoth Lakes, on all of us – we created this problem. We needed to solve it.

Odd she shows up just before Steve’s film crew shows up, hungry. The answer is not “BAD BEAR” screamed but a BEAR PLAN taking into consideration habit, type of bears in town and the area in which they are located.

The town of Mammoth, if it is going to spend almost $60,000 a year of taxpayer money on a wildlife person while it lays off others, should hire a retired biologist, or someone with animal behavior background.

John Eastman should be doubly ashamed of himself for not opening this independent contractor’s position up for bid, encouraging an open hiring process to find the best person available for the job.

If Steve Searles is making any money off our bears he should donate it to the bear non-profit either in Tahoe or Mammoth.

The town should be ashamed it created this problem and had a knee-jerk reaction to the bear problem. Again, where had this bear been for all of this time, Mr. Searles?

Bill Crane
Venice, Calif.