Category Analyses

Hearing on Copper Flat Mine, XI: Electricity

Copper Flat Mine needs so much water to operate that it will have long term impacts on the water use in this county for decades to come. It also needs a huge amount of electricity. How will that consumption affect the rest of us electricity users?

Hearing on Copper Flat Mine, IX-2: Filtered tailings stability (continued)

Continuing to think about the 500 acres of stacked tailings and what can keep the tailings from sliding downhill, I turn to the mine’s submitted technical studies on this subject. These studies do not give assurance that the miners know the answer to that question either. This is dangerous.

Hearing on Copper Flat Mine, IX-1: Filtered tailings stability (first part)

Several months ago, a PAWA member asked me what kept the big stack of tailings (500 acres and 200 feet deep) proposed at Copper Flat Mine from sliding down the hill. I try to answer that question. This is the first of a two-part article.

Hearing on Copper Flat Mine, VIII: Does NMCC intend to mine?

We calculate whether NMCC has enough water to mine Copper Flat in the manner proposed in its application to mine. It does not. Why, then, has NMCC applied for a mining permit?

Hearing on Copper Flat Mine, VI: Mining and the water crisis

We in Sierra County are living in, and at long last, beginning to understand that we live day to day in a water crisis. What is the justification for allowing someone to withdraw and evaporate a million gallons of groundwater a day during that social and economic crisis?

Hearing on Copper Flat Mine, V: Some facts to remember about the mine

Will Copper Flat Mine bring economic benefits to the county? A reasonable answer needs to balance both pros and the cons, not just repeat the PR blurbs. Here are some pertinent publicly known facts you may want to remember that relate to how Copper Flat Mine may impact us.