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February 27, 2021
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Forum
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| By
Michael Miller |
02/25/2021 3:58PM |
The endangered Species Act is 48 this year. In 1973 the Act was passed, but we had been preserving habitat and saving species well prior to that. For the first 20 years of the Act there was negligible impact on the West, and small impact in the East, most notably the fight over dams and the snail darter. The second 25 years of the Act has seen an explosion in the use of the Act as a weapon by environment groups to control and land and water. How bad has it become? Just look into California’s producing industries in farming, ranching, mining and logging. Who is footing the bill for our life necessities? You are.
The environmentalist attack is merely a symptom of the larger illness. The environmentalists have a dream of socialism in which they control the land and the means of production, but they are paid to protect it, rather than people being paid to produce with it.
Money flows to people whose value in the free market is exactly zero, ye they have created an industry entirely funded by taxpayers, whereby they earn princely sums of money like $750 an hour for lawyers to sue the government, and $200 an hour for frog researchers. In a free economy, who would pay a frog researcher even minimum wage, let alone $200 an hour?
Only your government can afford to force the taxpayers to pay this. How much did you receive last year to study endangered species, to prepare six page research papers or to sue the government?
The Sacramento Bee, the Huffington Post and others continue to screamed headlines of “Toxic Legacy of the Gold Rush.” Did anyone bother to actually ask if it was toxic? In over 150 years not a single verified person has been sickened by this mercury yet suddenly it’s “toxic”? The Singer Study, which costs taxpayer $280,000 to tell us major floods move sediment and with that sediment the mercury travels downhill, is a study in bilking the taxpayer. Why did we need to spend $280,000 for a six page study to tell us mercury travels downhill during major floods?
Four billion dollars per year goes to environmental groups. Four billion dollars buys a lot of propaganda. It’s clear the environmental groups aren’t doing a whole lot to save the environment such as planting trees or repairing eroding ditches, so where does the money go? It buys this kind of headline which then prompts yet more grant money to “study the problem.”
The environmentalists hide money in the shadow. They twist the truth to ensure a continued stream of grant money to study problems which may not exist. It’s a racket, it’s an industry. It’s corruption and greed. It’s time to shine the light of day and watch them scurry.
Protecting the environment was a simple thing. Let’s clean up the water, the air and ensure we’re not poisoning ourselves with toxic chemicals. It’s a reasonable goal and one in which laws were passed by Congress to do this. The toxic environment of the 1950s resulted in passage of the Clear Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Endangered Species Act. All laws we named producers are intimately familiar with. Somewhere along the way protecting the environment became an industry which gave rise to thousands of environmental groups all subsisting on taxpayer money.
The government throws a lot of money at these groups to “study” supposed problems. These supposed problems generally have very little to do with a clean environment and are often niche problems existing only because they have been deemed problems.
How did we get here? The genesis of the environmental movement was actually founded in conservationism, which is different than environmentalism. Conservationism, as supports by Teddy Roosevelt and Aldo Leopold held to an idea that natural resources were to be managed, conserved and preserved for future enjoyment. Not sealed off from humanity as the current environmentalists believe. Well, sealed from undesirable humans. Those who “tread lightly” are still welcome.
Rachel Carson’s book “Silent Spring” is largely acknowledged as the founding book of the environmental movement. To understand today’s environmentalists we start with Silent Spring as the baseline. Rachel Carson didn’t set out to ban a particular chemical, but the banning of DDT was the result. She addressed real problems with real consequences for humanity as they weren’t resolved.
If you hope to understand today’s environmentalist you need only understand money. Money is what drives them, not the protection of the environment.
"Truth like gold lies at the bottom" |
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| By
Michael Miller |
02/11/2021 11:42AM |
DEEP FROM THE UNDERGROUNG ARCHIVES&STILL RELEVANT
May 18, 2010
Dear Dr. Goldman,
Andy Yeiser speaks highly of your approach to fact, evidence and fairness. May I come to Davis for a visit at which time I’ will bring some data and be available to speak with you. You are invited to visit the mine and see for yourself. Alleghany is about two hours from Sacramento and it is a beautiful drive. It would be an honor to show you a part of California unknown to the majority, one of the world’s greatest gold deposit.
The activities of the California water board in its treatment of Original Sixteen to One Mine, Inc do not protect the environment, are not beneficial to the People of California as it claims in court papers and mocks the history of our great state. I was born and raised in Sacramento from parents and grandparents who were also born in California. It was a stroke of chance that I learned about the Sixteen to One mine in 1974 and moved to Alleghany to become a gold miner. I took over the company in1983 and became a director and president to the present. I live in Sierra County, understand its environment and, as a graduate of UCSB (combined social sciences/economics) have an experienced background including the value of GDP and those blue-collar jobs. Our state has been hijacked by well meaning environmental claimants to the determent of future generations. It is not the gold miner of today that is polluting California’s water. One only has to look to real estate development that has been unchecked for decades, urban sprawl and misguided enforcement programs.
Sincerely,
Michael M. Miller
(530) 287-3223
Sixteen to One Mine Summary of Water Issue
California enforces the federal and state water law
Operators that treat or discharge water may be required to obtain a permit from the State Water Control Board through one of its area agencies. The Central agency in Sacramento administers Sierra County, the home of Sixteen to One. An application is submitted to the agency. After review and consultation, a permit may be issued when applicable. Conditions are important because the law has specific requirements. One is the requirement to use site-specific data in recommending performance and terms. Permits are reviewed and renewed every five years. Relevant times to understand the current dispute between the agency and the Sixteen to One are: 1993,1998, 2003 and 2008. The operators of the Sixteen to One significantly modified its use of water in 1998 (surface milling of the ore ceased). The operator notified the agency in writing that milling and its subsequent discharge did not occur. This means that there was no treatment of surface or ground water that passes through the Sixteen to One property. The agency took no action to modify its review and subsequent test requirements in light of this important information. Between 1998 and 2003 the agency failed to send any of its employees for an on-site inspection of the property. Instead it carried out its legislative authority blindly and failed to exercise the required specificity as the legislature intended.
Conditions in Sierra County and the Sixteen to One
The Sierra County General Plan is in good standing. It has six General Plan Themes. One is to “protect the County’s natural resource based industries”. Another is the “protection of the environment and economic value of the Count’s resources”. A third deals with limiting the extension of County services in order “to reduce fiscal impacts and protect the environmental and economic value of the County’s resources.” The Sierra County General Plan is intended to serve these purposes locally until the year 2012 though updates within that period are expected.
Maintenance of the County’s resource extraction economy is a primary goal of the General Plan. Mineral extraction, particularly gold mining, has also continued to be an important part of Sierra County’s economy and identity over the years. Minerals are the basis for one of the principal industries of the County.
The State Conservation Element Guidelines (Government Code Section 65302(d)) calls for attention to the conservation, development and utilization of natural resources including gold. The Surface Mining and Reclamation Act (SMARA) also calls for very specific policies and mapping within general plans to protect minerals of economic value. It is the goal to encourage, enhance and protect mining and mining related activities in Sierra County.
The definitive federal document regarding the mineralization of the Sixteen to One is the United States Geological Survey, Professional Paper 172, and entitled “Gold Quartz Veins of the Alleghany District of California”. According to this paper the following accounts are highly regarded as factual. During Cretaceous time and most of Eocene time the district was undergoing erosion. It is estimated that the amount of cover removed in the Alleghany District during these periods was at least 10,000 feet and possibly much more. During and after the filling of the veins there were continued movements along the walls. The minerals formed do not appear to have required the introduction of notable amounts of new material but resulted from the recrystallization of the minerals of the wall rock. Accompanying the dominant quartz were other minerals, chiefly arsenopyrite, pyrite, albite, oligoclase and barite. Arsenic is native to the area.
Kanaka Creek and its tributary North Fork of Kanaka Creek (Little Kanaka) flow through the Alleghany District. Both are classified as intermediate. Flow rate is seasonal. The creeks contain arsenic but there are no signs of environmental harm along its course.
Original Sixteen to One Mine, Inc is the owner and operator of the Sixteen to One mine. It incorporated in California in 1911 and is the oldest American gold mining corporation. It is also very small is size and global impact. Its gold is free milling and the process does not use chemicals to break apart the various elements contained in the ore. It is a significant local employer, at one time the largest private employer in Sierra County. |
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| By
fredmcain |
03/08/2019 5:11AM |
Mike,
Thanks for an excellent response. I know that you have devoted your career and nearly your whole life to this mine. So, I have the faith that you know exactly what you are doing. I hope and pray that we will eventually be able to completely put this whole rats nest behind us.
I continue to have faith in you.
Best Regards,
Fred M. Cain |
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© 2021 Original Sixteen to One Mine, Inc.
PO Box 909
Alleghany, California 95910
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Design & development by
L. Kenez
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