Cement Company denied zone change (Fallon: mineral rights, how much, university)

[Tressa]

I recently read an article where the county had denied the request for a zoning change to allow a open pit mine for cement has anybody heard any more on that, just wanting to stay informed

[greatbasinguide]

Assuming you are talking about Pershing County and the Rye Patch Limestone mine. Yes, the County refused a zone change.
Keep in mind there has been an active Cement Plant at the south end of your area for many years.
Keep in mind that you do not own the mineral rights under your property.
Currently there are two open pit mines nearly within rifleshot of Humboldt Ranch Estates.
and,, this is a bit scary;

Vanessa Conrad, community organizer for Great Basin Mine Watch, said that her organization was concerned because, according to a study from University of Nevada, the soil contains mercury. In addition, the disturbance of the ground could cause emissions into the air.

[Tressa]

Yeah I had read about the possible emission in the air also, also read that Fallon suffers from a great deal of Lukemia among the youth due to the water being contaminated by the Air Force base there. I was vewing the google earth which has been updated since last summer, following the road over into Unionville and there is a great deal of salt alkaline what every you might call it in the hills around there too. What does Cour Rochester mine for?

[greatbasinguide]

The Coeur Rochester mine is a silver mine, there is also a kitty litter mine above Rye Patch, in there some where is a limestone mine, and north of Rye Patch I think, is a gold mine. Just south of Oreana through the pass is the bombing range.

The base in Fallon is Navy.

[BobKovacs]

Originally Posted by greatbasinguide

there is also a kitty litter mine above Rye Patch

Hmmm..that's an interesting tidbit- I hadn't realized that kitty litter was a mined commodity like gold and silver. I wonder why it doesn't trade on the commodities markets? Maybe the investors are afraid of getting a crappy return????

Bob

[greatbasinguide]

Har har,. certainly a pissy topic.

Kitty litter is diatomaceous earth, fossil plankton, the big sources are that mine in Nevada, a couple others in Nevada and near Lompoc CA

[Dedalus]

Originally Posted by greatbasinguide

Assuming you are talking about Pershing County and the Rye Patch Limestone mine. Yes, the County refused a zone change.
Keep in mind there has been an active Cement Plant at the south end of your area for many years.
Keep in mind that you do not own the mineral rights under your property.
Currently there are two open pit mines nearly within rifleshot of Humboldt Ranch Estates.
and,, this is a bit scary;

How much mercury? I'm about to run a rack of soil mercury's here in my lab.

Micrograms/kilogram is the usual units it's reported in.

[Dedalus]

Originally Posted by greatbasinguide

Har har,. certainly a pissy topic.

Kitty litter is diatomaceous earth, fossil plankton, the big sources are that mine in Nevada, a couple others in Nevada and near Lompoc CA

I once found raw DE near a mountain called Cinder Cone, in Mt. Lassen Volcanic Nat'l Park.

And, one time, I was covered from head to toe with it. I opened a valve I really shouldn't have. Ploop! I had it in my hair, up my nose, in my shoes: everywhere. I was quite a sight.

[greatbasinguide]

Nevada has mercury in the soil in places. It has not been tracked as much as it should, but there are shudders in the Dept of Mines, they are starting to track it. There is also mercury in many of the streams below old smelters.

The Carson River is a superfund site, left over from the old Virginia City Heyday. EPA decided it would be better to leave it insitu rather than stir things up by dredging. Lahontan Reservior at the end of the river has posted limits on how many fish one should eat per month. I imagine the Humboldt River and the silt at the bottom of Rye Patch has mercury also.

No idea how much is out there, but the data has been flogged around on the internet in various places recently.

[Dedalus]

Originally Posted by greatbasinguide

Nevada has mercury in the soil in places. It has not been tracked as much as it should, but there are shudders in the Dept of Mines, they are starting to track it. There is also mercury in many of the streams below old smelters.

The Carson River is a superfund site, left over from the old Virginia City Heyday. EPA decided it would be better to leave it insitu rather than stir things up by dredging. Lahontan Reservior at the end of the river has posted limits on how many fish one should eat per month. I imagine the Humboldt River and the silt at the bottom of Rye Patch has mercury also.

No idea how much is out there, but the data has been flogged around on the internet in various places recently.

There's a place in the hills above San Jose, California, where they mined a lot of the mercury used in silver/gold mining in Nevada. (Mark Twain wrote about it, and how they used to do it, in his book, "Roughing It.") It's called Almaden/Quicksilver Park. Well named; you can find globules of metallic mercury under rocks up there, I'm told. It's contaminated every body of water in the Santa Clara Valley. They have signs all over warning people not to eat the fish from the streams.

I think that the soil mercury would need to be very, very high before people needed to be concerned about airborne dust. Methyl mercury in the food chain is a different matter. Scary, scary stuff. There was a lady doing work with it, who handled it wearing the wrong kind of gloves. It went right into her, she died horribly.