Updated: Nov 8,2005

The Golden State? How About The Slime Green (Pond Scum) State!

Although California is called the Golden State, due to the Radical Environmental Movement flunkies, the California State Legislature, the gold mining business has been legislated out of business, with only 1% of mine production being comprised of gold. In their complete lack of reason, the flunkies 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, transporting, 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 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 flunkies of the radical left Environmental Movement. Another mining company under assault by the tree hugger Gestapo is Molycorp, a past producer of rare earths, the only producer in the US, became a victim of the Radical Environmental movement in California. In 1998, law enforcement officers barged into the mine with weapons drawn and commandeered 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. 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 hired these morons to enforce governmental regulations, and why were they all not fired for this horrendous assault against a group of professional people that I knew well? They were not criminals, they were mining professionals, conducting mining in a environmentally conscious method, producing rare earths for industrial uses in a very competitive market. After putting hundreds of people out of work and closing the mine, costing the owners many millions of dollars in legal fees, and harnessing the company with 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, after bleeding Molycorp for all of the cash the government of California figured they could get, 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 abyss, 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. 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 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. There was a time when the gold mining industry was the state economy, and there are still many gold reserves capable of supporting a mine, even today. But thanks to the head in the sand California Legislature, paid off by the Green Movement, this industry has been forced out of existence. I know the future the California Legislature wants for the state, every citizen will be employed promoting the growth of the green slime that supports the financial coffins (not coffers) of the elected representatives, which were put into office to serve the people, not to do them in. Alas, join me in playing taps for the gold industry in California, or better yet, kick those worthless clowns out of office, and send them back to wreak havoc on their own lives, quit destroying our lives and livelihood! 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 Return To Gold Information Page