Lake Combie mercury removal project crosses another hurdle

[Fullpan]

Part 4 of project features and objective 4, both in project description state the "decontaminated material" will be transported off site and sold as aggregate.

Hi, 419 - Since they're using a cutterhead dredge, only capable of handling silt and mud, (blades will be damaged by larger sand and gravel), the only
material delivered to the extraction equip. (Pegasus knelson bowl), is too small in particle size to be decontaminated of merc. The knelson bowl is no better
at capturing small particles of merc. than suction dredges miners were using, which was used against us by the Sierra Fund ("remobilizing" merc., they said)
There will be no "decontaminated material" - the piles of muck and silt will still have merc. in them.
Hey, since you live in the area, does anybody from meadow vista or colfax know or care about this waste of tax dollars?

 

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[Hefty1]

Part 4 of project features and objective 4, both in project description state the "decontaminated material" will be transported off site and sold as aggregate.

That would be the sand and gravel that is "decontaminated material" (Yea Right), that is all processed on site.

 

[Hefty1]

Sucking all material, and trucking it to another site to be cleaned of mercury and gold, and sorted (sand & gravel) then sold, would be the best way to do it. And I bet there would be companys out there willing to bid on doing that. But NO way! They want that taxpayers money and make it look like they are doing something good for the water.

SMOKE and MIRRORS!

 

[419GottaMinute]

What can we , as suction dredgers, offer that is comparable to their plan. We have to offer something better in order to get any sort of piece of this action. We would have to have a better plan of action than the existing contractors. Plus, there is the problem of moving all that material somewhere else. If there set up doesnt decontamite the sand silt and gravel, at least they can pay off an official to say its "clean". We could not, and you can bet your butt they will find a way to cite us for dumping toxic waste, no matter where er took it.

Maybe we can find a way to stall until we can get the contract re-negoitiated. Paying this company millions of dollars to recover possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars ingold is effing ridiculous.

I dont know, guys, im kinda stumped... lets see what we can do!

 

[Fullpan]

The very last sentence in the Anti-deg. Report states "Transparency and collaboration remain the two most
valuable assets of the project team and are critical to its continued success at Combie Reservoir."

Its very important to differentiate silt and mud (less than .063mm which are smaller than grains of salt) from other sediment.
Hate to sound repetitive, but our suction dredges out-perform the knelson bowl by at least 5% on SAND SIZE AND LARGER
sediment material. Both recovery methods do more poorly on less than .063 particle size. And less than .063mm is material
that contains the "boogy-man" mercury (potential to harm humans by getting into fish).

 

[Hefty1]

Ya know I get a headach just thinking about how stupid this all is! They have the gravel plant just upstream that could do all of this.

 

[419GottaMinute]

Threr is so much to read, I gave up at 12:30 lat night. Does anyone know if nid is sub contracting this out, or using nid employees to actually run the equipment?

I am doing all this redearch from my phone, so forgive the typos and redundant questions. ;-)

 

[419GottaMinute]

Btw, from my understanding of chemistry, there is no way to remove methy mercury from the enviroment, as it is a has that is bio accumulative, ie. Bacteria convert elemental mercury into methyl merccury, which is absorbed by the lowest members of the food chain and concertrates as you go up the food chain. So this project it only about removing elemental merc, right?

 

[Fullpan]

Well done grasshopper! Your getting into it now. The tiny, tiny BBs of merc. are bioavailable to benthic organisms which "can" convert those tiny BB's to
Mehg (methylmercury) - voila! "Boogy Man" merc.

Nature is moving liquid mercury left over from Hydraulic days down river, and in that process the liquid merc gets divided
more and more until, when it hits the delta, its "atomized" and can enter the food chain easier. That's why Combie was built
for two reasons - to keep floodwaters from carrying sand and gravel to farmland down below, AND to keep mercury behind
the dams as well. Since then, Combie has become a water source for NID.

 

[Fullpan]

Threr is so much to read, I gave up at 12:30 lat night. Does anyone know if nid is sub contracting this out, or using nid employees to actually run the equipment?

I am doing all this redearch from my phone, so forgive the typos and redundant questions. ;-)

I think NID is going to lease the "super quiet" generator to run the elec. dredge (also leased?). No info on 3,000ft slurry pipeline up to gravel pit area. The
extraction equip. (knelson bowl) at gravel pit will surely be contracted to Pegasus Earth Sensing Corp. could be wrong, but sure no NID employees.

On second thought, a check of maintenance contracts prior to 2003, would reveal dredging contractor prior to the ban.

 

[419GottaMinute]

This stinks of back room deals...

 

[Fullpan]

What can we , as suction dredgers, offer that is comparable to their plan. We have to offer something better in order to get any sort of piece of this action. We would have to have a better plan of action than the existing contractors. Plus, there is the problem of moving all that material somewhere else. If there set up doesnt decontamite the sand silt and gravel, at least they can pay off an official to say its "clean". We could not, and you can bet your butt they will find a way to cite us for dumping toxic waste, no matter where er took it.

Maybe we can find a way to stall until we can get the contract re-negoitiated. Paying this company millions of dollars to recover possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars ingold is effing ridiculous.

I dont know, guys, im kinda stumped... lets see what we can do!

If we can substitute 2 or three of our suction dredges (6inch?) for expensive elect. dredge, then capture all our tailings into a hopper to feed directly into
pipeline to gravel plant area. (Also elect. generator to run dredge) Then prove "overall" recovery rates beat Knelson bowl (98% to 93%) rendering Pegasus
irrelavent. Doesn't concern us what happens after that. Over 3 -5 yrs, thats a huge savings considering we work for free! (maybe a subsistence allowance)

 

[419GottaMinute]

In thi s scenario, do you and the gravel plant split the gold, or do you use it to cover cost of fuel and construction cost? Does anyone know the owners of the gravel processing companies near that locale?

Also in the plan it mentions running 6 to 9 months outta the year, 5 days a week. We woukd have to make sure we have "volunteers" to cover all those shifts. Plu s insurance costs...

All of these details woukd have to be workes out befire we even appriach the state about this. The devil is in the details...

 

[Fullpan]

The gold is caught at very beginning along with mercury in our sluice boxes. The gravel plant gets gravel delivered to their yard at no cost. Teichart is the
company eventually marketing the aggregate.

Probably six or seven days/week! volunteers might be difficult to get until we get deep enough to pay for ops. with gold, and even then its always a crap
shoot. Then there's wear and tear on our dredges, fuel costs, crew accomodations, a place for final clean-up of both metals, etc.

we think promising first and scrambling to make it happen later is no worse than their lies to us. Good point tho, about insurance, as "independant"
contractors dealing with state-maybe a waiver? guess not. What's in our favor is 100's of guys getting a chance at suction dredging gold without buying or leasing a claim!

 

[Hefty1]

Here is what NID sent to CDFG for funding....different info
Take a look at their budget list....




[PDF] Combie Reservoir Sediment and Mecury ... - State of California

nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentVersionID=50212
You +1'd this publicly. Undo
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View
Jun 1, 2011 – is NID losing water storage capacity, but more importantly, mercury methylation throughout the aquatic ecosystem is likely escalating as ...

 

[Hefty1]

Here is what NID sent to CDFG for funding....different info
Take a look at their budget list....




[PDF] Combie Reservoir Sediment and Mecury ... - State of California

nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentVersionID=50212
You +1'd this publicly. Undo
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View
Jun 1, 2011 – is NID losing water storage capacity, but more importantly, mercury methylation throughout the aquatic ecosystem is likely escalating as ...

Never mind...

Proposal ID: 019
Applicant: Tim Crough, Nevada Irrigation District
Title: Combie Reservoir Sediment and Mercury Removal Project
Amount Requested: $4,786,430
Description: The proposed project combines innovative mercury removal equipment (remediation technology) with reservoir maintenance dredging to remove mercury from dredged sediments in Combie Reservoir.
Panel Recommendation: Do Not Fund
Final Decision: Do Not Fund

 

[419GottaMinute]

So where are they going to try to squeeze $5, 000, 000 from next?

 

[Hefty1]

[h=2]Lake Combie mercury removal project crosses another hurdle[/h]

Tuesday Jan 22 2013

This project is far from over as they will continue seeking funding from other sources...keep posting here any info you find.
​

 

[Fullpan]

I just re-read the Jan 22, news article from Auburn Journal. The reporter, Gus Thompson was probably spoon fed the whole thing and did no fact-checking.
He states that tests have shown that 5 lbs of mercury can be recovered for every 5 tons of sediment. He also says the goal of the project is to remove
50 to 150 lbs of merc. from approx. 200,000 tons of sediment. I'm terrible at math but doesn't that come to 40,000 lbs of mercury removed?

 

[Hefty1]

Ya know Fullpan...I have read so many articals on this...the numbers are so different in many of these that they cant know what they will recover....merc, gold, sediment, sand, gravel, or how much of each. They just make it sound good to the sheeple and they bite it every time. I have sent out many letters to all people,agencys involved with no response as of yet.
Maybe they dont want to respond...I dont know?