Environmentalists are hailing the shutdown of a major gold mine in northeastern Nevada as the first step towards cleaning up contaminated waterways as far away as southern Idaho, including the renowned waters of Silver Creek, south of Bellevue.
At the core of a yearlong investigation by the state that led to the closure are mercury emissions from the massive Jerritt Canyon Mine, which is near Idaho's southern border about 50 miles north of Elko. The investigation convinced state officials to order the shutdown of the gold mine's processing plant.
Leo Drozdoff, head of the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection, said last week that his order requires Queenstake Resources' Jerritt Canyon Mine to install new, more effective emission-control equipment.
The ore "roasters," which were ordered shut down, must be upgraded by the end of the year. If the company wants to restart the roasters earlier using existing pollution-control gear, it must install new instruments to ensure the gear is operating properly.
Unlike gold mines elsewhere, mines in northern Nevada use ore roasters to superheat gold-bearing ore to several thousand degrees. In the process, mercury that occurs naturally in the rock is converted from its normal liquid state into vapor. Once vaporized, the mercury becomes airborne, officials say.
Aloft in the atmosphere, winds carry the mercury to downwind sites far from the element's original source. And because winds in northern Nevada generally trend northeast, southern Idaho is one of the most common recipients of the mercury emissions, environmentalists say.
Drozdoff said he ordered the shutdown because of the failure of the company, a subsidiary of British Columbia-based Yukon-Nevada Gold Corp., to fully comply with two previous state orders.
Graham Dickson, head of Yukon-Nevada Gold, issued a statement saying many repairs and alterations had been completed already and it was "unfortunate" that the mine was still "short of the required standard."
Dickson said that while the state's stop order was scheduled to take effect March 17, the roasters were already shut down for planned work. He said the planned shutdown shouldn't affect the mine's expected 2008 production of 120,000 ounces of gold.
When the state first moved against the Jerritt Canyon Mine in February 2007, Queenstake issued a statement saying the company would spend about $500,000 on emission-control upgrades.
The state's action was the first under new regulations adopted by Nevada to control airborne mercury emissions at precious-metals mines.
The Jerritt Canyon Mine is just one of about 25 large gold mines operating in northern Nevada that environmentalists say are responsible for mercury contamination in southern Idaho and portions of Utah.
Most impacted by this airborne issue are Idaho's waterways and fish populations, Justin Hayes, program director for the Boise-based Idaho Conservation League, told a crowd gathered at a meeting in Hailey last December.
Through a complex process, elemental mercury is converted into organic methyl mercury, a more toxic form of the element.
Throughout Idaho, numerous bodies of water have been tested and shown to contain fish with high levels of mercury in their flesh. In southern Idaho, those include Salmon Falls Creek Reservoir, where test results have shown fish to have the highest known levels of mercury in the state.
And the mercury problem isn't just limited to the southernmost portions of the state, as an announcement last November by the Idaho chapter of The Nature Conservancy indicated.
To the dismay of many Wood River Valley residents, the conservation group announced that testing conducted in June of 2007 indicates that Silver Creek—whose waters and large trout draw tourists from throughout the world—is also contaminated by unhealthy levels of mercury. The toxic element is considered to be especially harmful to pregnant women and children.
The closure of the Jerritt Canyon mine will allow for the lengthy process of cleaning up southern Idaho to begin, Hayes said last week.
"This company is responsible for massive mercury pollution affecting Idaho," he said. "Many fisheries in southern Idaho are dangerously contaminated with toxic mercury because of the pollution spewed out by the Nevada-based gold mines."
The Jerritt Canyon Mine has been operating just south of the Idaho border for nearly 20 years, a news release from the ICL states. During that time known mercury emissions have been in excess of 10,000 pounds per year, the ICL says. By comparison, the average-size coal-fired power plant emits only 125 pounds of mercury per year.
"Shutting down this mine is a step in the right direction," Hayes said. "Now we just have to figure out how to clean up the 20 years worth of mercury that they spread all over southern Idaho."
Earlier this year, the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality issued a fish-consumption advisory, warning people, especially pregnant women and children, to limit their consumption of fish from Silver Creek due to mercury contamination.
The Nevada Department of Environmental Protection said the Jerritt Canyon case came to a head in late 2006 when the company conducted tests to meet initial requirements of the new state rules. The state's mercury control program was the first program of its sort in the nation. Drozdoff said the program has produced "some early positive results," including moves by two other mining companies in the state to reduce mercury emissions.
Environmentalists say the state-ordered shutdown of a major gold mine in northeastern Nevada will have positive implications for many southern Idaho waterways believed to be contaminated by mercury emissions from mines across the border. A study conducted last year showed brown trout in Silver Creek have unhealthy levels of mercury in their flesh.
Photo by Mountain Express
