Nevada City Sphere of Influence DEIR Out for Public Review
- We have hired attorneys to comment
- Please ask LAFCo to: Allow Nevada City to maintain land use control over its long time Community Area
- Save the date: August 20 Public Hearing
The Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) for LAFCo’s proposal to modify the Nevada City Sphere-of-Influence (SOI) is out for public review after over a year in the making. CEA Foundation remains concerned about the possibility of Nevada City losing control over planning for it’s own future. Currently, the City’s Sphere of Influence encompasses an area that has always made sense for good planning purposes. AND The County General Plan SOI policy that the RQC fought for years ago enables all three incorporated cities in the County to have control over the zoning in their SOIs even prior to annexation. It is important for this policy to remain in place as well as the mapped community area that it protects.
CEA Foundation has hired attorneys Shute, Mihaly and Weinberger to comment on the DEIR.
Public written comments are due by August 3 (to LAFCo) and a public hearing will be held by LAFCo on August 20, 9:30 am, Rood Center, for further public input. Please hold the date so we can fill the room!
We will email a summary of our comments on the DEIR to you soon… after we have analyzed it carefully.
The Idaho-Maryland Mine Permit Application
- New owners, new problems
- We stopped them last time. We can do it again!
- We have retained attorneys to prepare DEIR comments
CEA Foundation continues to monitor the status of RISE Gold’s Idaho-Maryland Mine (IM Mine) permit application and we have been reviewing the applicant’s project documents that are posted. A fourth group of documents were posted on June 26, but the project application is not yet “Deemed Complete.” County documents are available online at https://www.mynevadacounty.com/2882/Application-Documents—Rise-Grass-Valley.
About Mine Permit Process – After the project is deemed complete, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) process starts and a Notice of Preparation (NOP) will be filed. The county expects that the NOP will be issued in the next few weeks. That starts the DEIR process. Scoping Meetings will follow in which the public has a chance to submit comments on what areas should be studied for the DEIR. We expect to participate fully in this phase of the process and will be sending out updates of comment periods and meetings to our subscribers. Note that the county estimates that the DEIR process will take approximately 9 to 12 months to complete. Once the DEIR is published there will be public comment periods and hearings before the Planning Commission.
CEA Foundation is enlisting legal services of Shute, Mihaly, & Weinberger LLP for legal guidance during the CEQA process. In the past, we have learned that legal guidance is critical in assuring that the protections that are intended under CEQA are realized.
IM Mine Legacy Tailings Cleanup – Assessment Finished -Legacy Tailings Still a Big Problem
270,000 cubic yards of tailings will be addressed. The DTSC Preliminary Endangerment Assessment (PEA) for the legacy tailings at the 56 acre former IM Mine site has now been finalized and can be viewed at
https://www.envirostor.dtsc.ca.gov/public/final_documents2?global_id=60000716&doc_id=60468418
This document provides detailed information regarding the amount and degree of contamination and guides the preparation of the cleanup work plan. RISE must now prepare a Removal Action Plan, which will provide details regarding the actual work that RISE must perform. If costs fall within the typical range of $50 to $500 per yard, RISE would have to spend $13 – $135 million to clean it up. Since this project is also under CEQA, there will be a review period and public hearing on the proposed remediation. We plan to participate in this process.
How the Cleanup Impacts Opening IM Mine – One of the reasons we want to keep close tabs on the Centennial cleanup is because RISE plans to dump about 1.6 million tons of mine waste rock and tailings on the site, forming a massive built-up pad of “engineered fill” rising 30 to 70 feet above grade and covering 44 acres. Even if there were not a problem with contamination, the existing legacy tailings would have to be removed because, according to the Centennial Geotechnical Report produced by NV5 for RISE, the old tailings are structurally unsuitable for a base layer under the built-up pad.
The cleanup is being done as a separate project and permit under the control of the DTSC. It is taking place regardless of whether the mine permit is approved or not. CEA Foundation wants to be certain that the cleanup is done correctly and that it is completed prior to approval of the mine permit. Otherwise, there is no guarantee that all of the remediation is done before RISE begins to utilize the area to create yet another mine waste and tailings pile.
Background Information on Legacy Tailings – Historically, until the mine shut down around 1956, the main operations of the Idaho-Maryland Mine were at the 56 acre site along Idaho-Maryland Road between DeMartini RV Sales and Centennial Drive. A majority of this site remains covered with tailings from previous operations and contains elevated levels of arsenic, lead, copper, mercury and nickel. Canadian mining company RISE Gold Corp, through it’s wholly owned subsidiary “Rise Grass Valley”, acquired the IM Mine from Emgold and began the application process to reopen the mine in 2019. In August, 2019, RISE was faced with a possible federal superfund designation due to these contaminants and entered into a voluntary agreement with the California Department of Toxic Substance Control (DTSC) to clean it up. ( See https://www.cea-nc.org/mining/jan-21-2020-facing-epa-superfund-designation-rise-gold-compelled-to-cleanup-existing-idaho-maryland-mine-tailings/) This site is now called the “Centennial Site”. The cleanup project is in the assessment stage and is being managed by DTSC under a signed Voluntary Agreement contract. RISE is required to complete it regardless of what happens to the IM Mine permit application.