state of mining in california

In 2004, California produced more non-fuel minerals than any other state in the US. These minerals were industrial minerals, such as boron, sand and gravel, diatomite, sodium sulfate, portland cement, bentonite clay (including hectorite), common clay, crushed stone, dimension stone, feldspar, fuller's earth, gemstones, gypsum, iron ore, kaolin clay, lime, magnesium compounds, perlite, pumice, pumicite, pyrophyllite, salt, silver, soda ash, and zeolites. It was estimated that 11,000 people were employed in the mining industry in California in 2004, which unlike flipping burgers, these skilled labor and professional jobs are well paid with the average miner making around $40,000/year (MSHA).

Although California is called the Golden State, due to the Radical Environmental Movement flunkees, the California State Legislature, the gold mining business had been legislated out of business, with only 1% of mine production being comprised of gold. In their complete lack of reason, the flunkees of the green movement decided that surface gold mines must reclaim their pits, by completely filling them in. Only a few grams of gold are contained in a ton of low grade ore, and it takes all of the technology and planning that engineers and operators can devise to produce gold at a profit, without the absurd added expense of filling in the pit. If the legislature were half as efficient as a modern gold mining operation, extracting a ounce of gold by blasting, crushing, leaching 20 tons of rock, the State of California would collect twice the revenues with half of the current tax rates, and we would have a surplus, in place of of the current onerous deficit. But, alas, we are not so fortunate. These clowns are more like Bozo orange wig, big nose and floppy shoes, sending this State down the Green Road to Ruin. Since the majority of gold mined today is low grade, surface mined and heap leached, this ridiculous law effectively closed all surface gold mining in the state of California, and the Radical Environmental Movement had once again shoved their agenda down business operators throats, through their financing of the legislators that pushed their agenda until it became law. California had four gold mines operating in 2004 and they are all in various states of closure, currently. No gold mining is currently being conducted in any of the surface gold mines, but several are still leaching previously mined ore in heap leaches. This will remain so, until someone elects legislatures that actually have some sense and are not paid flunkees of the radical left Environmental Movement.

Molycorp Inc.’s, a past producer of rare earths, the only producer in the US, was also a victim of the Radical Environmental movement in California. In 1998, law enforcement officers barged into the mine with weapons drawn and commandered the records and shut the plant down, because one government environmental employ thought they might be processing hazardous waste on the site. This woman must have had a daily crack habit, they really should institute mandatory drug screening for all government employees, especially regulatory and environmental positions. If this woman was not on drugs, she was certainly in need of psychiatric help. Needless to say, a minor spill resulting from a broken tailings pipelines that released some of the slightly radioactive minerals dug from the desert, spilled onto the desert and this psychopath sent in the swat team. Who hires these morons, and why were they all not fired for this debacle?

After putting hundreds of people out of work and closing the mine, costing the owners many millions of dollars in legal fees, and scientifically unjustified operational changes, reclamation and fines, the mine remains closed today. Unless some changes in the current radical governmental regulatory agencies is experienced, closure is the future for all business in California. They start with mines, because every greenie hates mining.

However Molycorp's fifty million dollar EIR and permit to mine was approved in July 2004 to enlarge the current pit and construct a new on-site tailings impoundment and evaporation pond for their Mountain Pass rare earths mine (San Bernardino County). Wisely, they have not plundered headlong back into the abiss, until they will have some assurance that the same lunatics will not take up smoking crack and imagine that they might be producing alien mind control machines, and once again send in the swat team.

To sum it up, unless you are in industrial minerals, you will be mining it someplace other than California. Just like the legislators have run most manufacturing business out of the state they have focused their energies on the gold mining industry, to destroy it, also. The graph below shows that the industrial mineral industry has added 3.6 billion dollars to the California economy, and will continue to expand, unless the legislature decides to help them move into oblivion.

Please note that if any government agency, person, or tree hugger organization is offended by anything I say or write, I really don't care, so don't bother to send me email, call or write.

Charles Kubach, Mine-Engineer.Com