Midas Gold promises big and delivers small (or not at all).
Gate installed, operated and maintained by Midas Gold, on Stibnite Road.
Midas Gold claims to "listen and work well with local communities." However, Midas Gold's first order of business was to install closed iron gates on a public road.... ... more than 10 miles away from their mining claims. Locking the public out of public lands.
The same road that Valley County taxpayers (myself included) just finished paying $350,000 to restore and upgrade.....primarily to benefit Midas Gold at taxpayer expense.
Normally, a private for profit corporation installing gates on public lands would be met with heavy resistance (think: Wilkes brothers).
However, Valley County, which has long been fraught with corruption, including high level officials going to prison for taking grant money: is all too happy to take Midas' money. Especially since Valley County Commissioner Chairman Gordon Cruickshank agreed to become a Midas Gold Stibnite Foundation board member, overseeing where slush fund grant money goes and who gets it.
Letter from Midas Gold to Valley County Commissioner Chairman Gordon Cruickshank, thanking him for becoming a board member. Think: Conflict of interest. Quid Pro Quo .
SECOND POINT: MIDAS GOLD WANTS TO DESTROY FISH HABITAT
I first saw Stibnite Mine when my dad went to work there in 1983. I fished all up and down the East Fork and Meadow Creek, which run through Stibnite.
Later, I went to work at Stibnite Mine. Including taking water quality samples and submitting them to the laboratory for testing, planting trees, vegetation, building sediment containment structures.
After work, stopping at the Glory Hole to fish was my favorite pastime.
Although the area is very high in arsenic and mercury: time has capped most of the toxic sludge, old barrels of unknown chemicals left by decades of mining.
Time and natural processes have brought the East Fork back to EPA levels safe enough for drinking water quality.
Midas Gold plans to drive a new tunnel through volcanic sediments high in arsenic and, sulfides and mercury (think acid mine drainage). Their plan is to drain the Glory Hole, expand it into an even bigger open pit mine (with more toxic sulfides, arsenic and mercury). Then put the river back into the original channel when they are done.
Midas Gold doesn't have that kind of money. It was given over 100 million dollars by other mining companies in just the past three years. But according to Midas' investment information posted publicly: they have less than 12 million dollars cash on hand. And nothing to show for the $78 million they blew through in such a short timeframe.
Summary:
1) Midas Gold is more interested in destroying public access to public lands, than they are in mining.
2) Midas Gold plans to create massive disturbances in pristine fish habitat that has been at rest for several decades.
3) Midas Gold is fiscally irresponsible and will most likely leave taxpayers holding the bag for cleaning up their mess.
Scott Amos
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