Local resident Mary Anderson questions the trustworthiness of the increasingly aggressive employment claims made by Rise Gold. What are your ideas about business alternatives that could provide good-paying jobs while being less damaging to the neighboring environment.
Read it in the The Union.
I don’t think that mine opponents would argue that our county needs good-paying jobs. However, they probably would argue whether those jobs will come with reopening the mine and at what cost.
And how did we all of a sudden get to the promise of 600 jobs? If I recall, there were originally around 200 jobs and only part of those were for locals. Then it was upped to 300 jobs, still only part for locals. Now we¹re up to 600 jobs, “300 or so around town.“
As far as I know, there has been no formal study done to determine the effect of the reopening of the mine on the local economy. I would like to see a list of businesses that will supposedly be offering those jobs.
As far as Nevada County being an older population and having a healthy dose of retirees from the Bay Area, that has been the case for the 30 years that I have lived here.
I would venture a guess that Lake Wildwood owes its existence to a lot of those retirees. And for the young people “leaving in droves,” how many are going to want to stay and become miners when they finish school? Many leave because they want the experience of living in a more urban area.
So maybe we can all come together and try to come up with something that could make better use of the mine property, something that would provide good-paying jobs while being less damaging to the neighboring environment.
Mary Anderson resides in Grass Valley.