The Mt Hope mine will effect multiple HMAs in an area where water is often a flash point that causes controversy with wild horses. The mine will create a 10 ft drawdown of the water table and it is highly likely that the current plan will create serious pollution issues that will last a century or more. The impact from this project will effect a very large area. 

Back in June we alerted you to a hearing to allow the arguments against the state water plan. The hearing will be Sept 4. WHE is working in support of GBRW and PLAN. (June hearing)

At the bottom of this article you can add your name requesting a reevaluation. If you live nearby you can show support at the hearing. We will update as we receive more info.

These types of impacts to our public lands are running fast as wild horses still do not have science based stocking levels, and boundary lines, and get “what is left over” after every interest takes the lions share. These types of activities are those that really hurt wild horses, and the land they stand on, that will lead to further claims that the land can not sustain wild horses. An advocacy that fights for on-range management, must fight for the range itself.  It is worth your time, as an advocate, to understand and get involved.

“The true cost of this project impacts every living thing; human beings, livestock, wildlife and wild horses. Wild horses will be affected, long-term, through this reckless plan. The BLM is pushing this through under a land use plan that is almost 40 years old that does not provide appropriate safeguards for wild horses, or any public interest. The state has a responsibility to all Nevadans to demand accountability to the impacts to the most critical resource of life, water,”  said Laura Leigh, President of NV based Wild Horse Education

State Environmental Commission to hear Great Basin Resource Watch challenge to Mt. Hope Molybdenum Mine environmental permit

On September 4, 2019 the Nevada State Environmental Commission will hear Great Basin Resource Watch’s (GBRW) arguments opposing the renewal of the Water Pollution Control Permit for the proposed Mt Hope Molybdenum mine 23 miles just northwest of Eureka, Nevada.  GBRW has been concerned that the proposed mine will be a water pollution source for hundreds of years and will waste and degrade Nevada’s water in a large mining pit lake.

GBRW’s brief states that “The Potentially Acid Generating Waste Rock Disposal Facility will discharge acidic metal-laden leacheate to the groundwater and/or surface seeps for centuries to millennia as it weathers into the future.”  This is the conclusion of GBRW’s staff geochemist with 25 years of experience analyzing water quality for existing and proposed mines.  GBRW is asking for Eureka Moly LLC to amend the waste rock management plan to evaluate long-term treatment of acid mine drainage including a credible estimation of the time frame for treatment and potential increased treatment costs, since current financial assurances do not address a perpetual management scenario.

GBRW also contends that the Eureka Moly LLC predicted pit-lake water quality is seriously in error, and the pit-lake will violate Nevada regulations.  As stated in the GBRW brief, “The pit lake water quality model algorithm contains an error that produces a systematic underestimate in the calculated load of solutes released from sulfide bearing wall rock and to the lake.”   Thus, the error in the pit-lake water quality requires a reevaluation of whether the mining pit lake will be a hazard to wildlife and the community

Said Carolyn Bailey, a resident of Diamond Valley nearest to the proposed mine said, “The Bailey Family has been ranching and farming in Diamond Valley since 1863.  Our ranch and farms are located close enough to the Mount Hope mine site to be adversely affected by mine caused impairment of air and water, increased truck traffic, and the very real damage to our environment from the massive pumping and resulting further drawdown of the groundwater.  The costs will be irretrievable and irreparable and will be paid by our family and community”

“The Mt. Hope Mine Project would be one of the largest open pit mines in the nation.  The environment around Mt. Hope will be obliterated if this project goes forward as planned.  The mine’s federal permit was revoked by court order in 2016 due an inadequate EIS and the State should require independent technical assessment of the mine to avoid permitting a disaster,” said John Hadder, Director of Great Basin Resource Watch.

OTHER STATEMENTS SUPPORTING FURTHER ANALYSIS

“The Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada (PLAN) supports Great Basin Resources Watch’s appeal of the Mount Hope Molybdenum Mine’s water pollution control permit. Nevadans have a right to know the range of possible impacts, and this is why there needs to be a fund for independent technical review to better inform Agency decisions regarding contentious projects that could have indefinite impacts, “ said Ian Bigley, Mining Justice Organizer PLAN.

“The Western Shoshone that toured the Mount Hope site in 2007 all agreed that the impacts to the water resources, loss of mature piñon/juniper forest, and destruction of cultural sites to too high of a price for this mine, “ said Larson Bill, Western Shoshone Defense Project.  During the tour Western Shoshone Elder Bernice Lalo of Battle Mountain said, “I don’t understand this attitude of destruction.”  Pauline Estevez, Timbisha Shoshone said as we passed a spring, “what is important is what is here now … that spring is our ancestor, it is a cultural site.”

Patrick Donnelly, State Director for The Center for Biological Diversity said, “It’s unconscionable that the State of Nevada would permit the mining industry to permanently pollute water in the driest state in the country. This mine would pump over three billion gallons of water out of the ground every year, returning almost none of it, causing permanent declines in water levels which would dry up surface water, putting local wildlife in dire jeopardy. Great Basin Resource Watch’s legal action is essential to protecting Nevada’s precious water resources for future generations.”

Kevin Emmerich, Co-Founder of Basin and Range Watch and resident of Beatty, NV said,  “The Gemfield Mine was recently approved on public lands just north of Goldfield, Nevada and like Mt. Hope, it does not have an adequate plan that would avoid a toxic mining pit lake and groundwater contamination. The State of Nevada should make stronger efforts to keep Nevada’s water clean and available to residents and wildlife instead of allowing mining companies to use unsustainable mining practices that will compromise Nevada’ water quality.”

“The true cost of this project impacts every living thing; human beings, livestock, wildlife and wild horses. Wild horses will be affected, long-term, through this reckless plan. The BLM is pushing this through under a land use plan that is almost 40 years old that does not provide appropriate safeguards for wild horses, or any public interest. The state has a responsibility to all Nevadans to demand accountability to the impacts to the most critical resource of life, water,”  said Laura Leigh, President of NV based Wild Horse Education

1. HOPE MOLYBDENUM MINE BACKGROUND INFORMATION

About the mine project:

• In mining for molybdenum, 1.7 billion tons of waste rock would be produced by the end of the 32-year mine life and 1.0 billion tons of tailings will be produced by the end of the 44 years of ore processing.  Waste rock would almost encircle the open pit at a total height ranging from 750 feet to 950 feet.
• Mining the open pit would result in an excavation of approximately 2,300 feet below the existing water table, which would be approximately 2,640 beneath the natural surface.  The pit lake that is anticipated to form in the open pit is expected to fill slowly and eventually be over 1,100 feet deep.  Water quality in the pit lake is predicted to exceed federal and state water quality standards for a number of pollutants.
• Pump groundwater at a rate of 11,250 to 12,050 afy (acre-feet per year) equivalent to 3.92 billion gallons per year.  With the predicted pumping to last roughly 43 years, this means that, in total, up to 168.8 billion gallons of water will be removed from the Mt. Hope area by the Project’s dewatering.
• As a result of this dewatering, the Final EIS predicts that “22 springs two perennial stream segments (Roberts Creek and Henderson Creek) and portions of four intermittent and ephemeral stream drainages” are within the area where at least a ten-foot drop in the water level will occur (the 10-foot drawdown cone).

The action item is now closed.

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