Cougar Gold to wait for WSA release
Catch 22, Mexican standoff, vicious circle … call it what you will, but after spending $7 million on exploratory work in 2009, officials from Cougar Gold LLC told the Mono County Board of Supervisors on Feb. 15 that they are reluctant to develop and submit any plans to move forward with additional work, let alone any full-scale mining efforts, until the Bodie Hills area is released from Wilderness Study Area (WSA) status.
A non-action agenda item drew a packed crowd inside Bridgeport’s Memorial Hall. The Board also heard from Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The discussion drew civil, but decidedly polarized comments from more than two-dozen members of the public, both supporting keeping the WSA as is, as well as backing Cougar Gold’s efforts. Following the Board meeting, Cougar Gold also hosted a Town Hall meeting in the Memorial Hall at 6 p.m.
For more on this story, see this weekend’s print edition of The Sheet and online here at www.thesheetnews.com.
Cougar Gold says that they want a “commitment” from the community in the form of lifting protections on our public lands. Their presentation yesterday was decidedly short on information. You want a commitment? We need facts!
How will this project affect the region long-term? Will they use cyanide? Will our water be polluted?
“Will our water be polluted?” Doesn’t DWP in Southern California have title to “our water?” We need the facts here too!
here was a good one from last night – don’t worry, even if we were to contaminate the creek it flows into nevada (not california).
what a nice group of folks to have coming into our county!
Cougar Gold spent hours Tuesday avoiding giving any facts about their proposed project while pretending to want openness. It is clear that they want the Wilderness Study Area designation removed so they can have an open pit mine in the Bodie Hills.
They were so friendly and concerned about the 100’s of jobs they would provide to Bridgeport but so unavailable about what the impact would be. Their geologist even admitted that if there was any contamination of the water supply it would flow into Nevada so we don’t need to worry about it.
The meeting Tuesday, I thought, was supposed to be full disclosure and detailed plans about Cougar’s proposal for their gold mine in Bodie. Who they will hire for which positions, method of extraction, etc. Because there were no real facts only what seemed to be posturing, I can’t imagine a workable partnership with this outfit. Any business at all concerned about our community would be congenial and offer real data. I suspect there will be few jobs of value and no commitment to an environmentally safe extraction method. Let them go somewhere else. Don’t let Cougar Gold via this Wallace guy bully us into an unknown quagmire!
Wallace came off as pretty slick and sleazy to me, I hope the resident’s of Bridgeport can see through this billionaire fat cat, and Cougar Gold’s empty promises. At the evening meeting, they made the claim that the WSA regulations would be far too costly and even “bankrupt” them. They then stated that they would still have to follow the same strict state and federal environmental regulations with or without the WSA (which is true). When pressed about this, they decidedly changed their tune about costly regulations, claiming that they didn’t want to continue their efforts at the Paramount site using their “Grandfathered Rights”; and again contradicted this by saying that they can and will still explore and mine using those grandfathered rights. I’m still waiting for an honest answer.
No wonder California is running a huge deficit; without business you all will starve!
So glad I moved out of California. I now live and work in an area that is supportive of business, and more importantly, jobs and income. Without knowing the facts – many of you have already condemned Cougar Gold. As a professional environmental scientist, who is in the business of managing environmental permitting for gold mines in Nevada; I can authoritatively say that most of the mining operations I have worked with are scrupulous in their closure and reclamation efforts and plans. Additionally the permitting we have to go through for our gold mine clients is extensive and overly burdensome to the point of approaching the farcical. So believe in the notion that the “fat cat” investor is out to get you if you wish; but it is a childish notion and smacks of extreme paranoia. The fact is the act of polluting…by anyone…is costly and dangerous and any good businessperson knows that and works hard to limit their environmental liability exposure.
I should also add I have worked with the Tribes in the Bodie area, and know them quite well. I also know and love the Bodie/Mono Lake area very much and am well familiar with many of the local issues. Having said that I also know that the jobs and income produced by a single gold mine are substantial and should not be discounted.