Residents of Nevada County and local government agencies were shocked at the inadequacy of the 1000+ page Draft Environmental Impact Report for the proposed Idaho-Maryland Mine.
It not only described a huge number of impacts, but it was riddled with errors, omissions, and legal flaws. So many in fact, that community reviewers, legal experts, and local government agency reviews of the report called for the draft to revised and recirculated before moving to the final draft.
"We'll see many more impacts listed as 'significant and unavoidable' before its done," said Ralph Silberstein, President of CEA Foundation.
The Union | Opponents Decry Riddled with Errors: Water, mine waste, and greenhouse gas emissions top the list of concerns.
The Union | The City of Grass Valley hired their own consultant to review the report.
The Union | An investigative report describes how the Mine report leaves well owners 'Hung out to dry'.
Draft Environmental Impact Report Seriously Inadequate | Recirculation required to meet CEQA Guidelines
Over 1000 legitimate public comments were submitted to Nevada County regarding the Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) for the proposed reopening of the Idaho-Maryland Mine. These included experts, volunteers, and legal minds from CEA Foundation and its MineWatch coalition members, as well as local government agencies.
Read local agency comments - City of Grass Valley, Nevada Irrigation District, Northern Sierra Air Quality Management District, Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board
Bonus content - Controversy - Rise Gold "Stuffing the Ballot Box"
In addition to the legitimate comments, Rise Gold submitted 1,600 comments that simply declared support for the mine which included over 500 duplicates & multiple faked names.
Almost 500 people attended the County's meeting about environmental impacts of the mine. Of the 101 who picked up tickets to comment, only one spoke in favor of the mine. Check out the coverage in the Union. Read the article | View the video
Local resident Michael Shea corrects The Union in this opinion piece.
KVMR Radio Host, Martin Webb describes the DEIR by the numbers and what that means to our small community. Run time 9 min. Share the PDF or video with others using these links: https://www.minewatchnc.org/post/83-negative-impacts-oh-my or, https://youtu.be/Wyj0iwAS22Q
Negative Impacts of IMM Are Too Many To List. Retired capital planner Paul Schwartz saw plenty of environmental impact reports in his career, and knows a bad project when he sees one.
CEA Foundation President, Ralph Silberstein questions the science and mitigations described in the DEIR. Run time 12 min.
Mine would undermine climate change solutions. The mine report uses categorization to stay below arbitrary, outdated thresholds, says Citizen's Climate Lobby Nevada County chapter Director David Whitehead.
Too Good to Be True. Rise Gold's biological assessment report on the 129 acre Brunswick site says they "did not record any observation of deer," but their next door neighbor, Mike Shea wrote a column a recorded the reality with a trail cam.
Community members submitted many dozens of opinion pieces to the local newspaper during the DEIR review period. As of June 2022, 168 opinions had been published since the fight began. Only eight of them were pro-mine. That’s 95% opposed.
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