Lake Combie mercury removal project crosses another hurdle

Fullpan

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I have tried to cut and paste. It selects all the ads and other garbage along with it! Sorry.

No problem, you told the jist of the two stories. I don't know how to set up a poll, but think someone ought to ask the members here if they believe the
"gold bars in the nick of time" story.

Here's a little more of the gold bars story: "...Half of the purchase price (of the 600,000 "mercury machine") was found in a
safety deposit box..." "NID finance director Marie Owens, who has since retired, recently found a key in a drawer..." "...What
they found (in the Bank of America safety deposit box) was 300 ounces of gold in six separate oblong misshapen bars, Wilcox said.
The officials took the gold bars to a gold buyer, where it was determined they consisted of 71 percent pure gold with a total value
of about $300,000." "We determined that we could pay for some of our operations in gold, Wilcox said."
"The bars were given to NID by RJ Miles, a gravel mining company based in Colfax, as payment for a mining lease for Combie
Lake."
 

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Fullpan

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i wont pretend to know much of anything about mining or recovering mercury. since mercury will adhere to gold and the main concern is collecting the smaller particles of mercury, what about modifying or extending the sluice on a dredge by adding something like a drop riffle section and in the bottom of each drop riffle put in some kind of gold anode for the mercury to adhere to? i'm just thinking out loud here. :dontknow:

Very good idea!
 

Mad Machinist

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i wont pretend to know much of anything about mining or recovering mercury. since mercury will adhere to gold and the main concern is collecting the smaller particles of mercury, what about modifying or extending the sluice on a dredge by adding something like a drop riffle section and in the bottom of each drop riffle put in some kind of gold anode for the mercury to adhere to? i'm just thinking out loud here. :dontknow:

Very nice!!!!

Add this into a new design dredge and we're off.

This is why the eco's are so afraid of us. We can put our heads together and find a way to solve a problem as cheaply and effectively as possible. So in order to make themselves look better they have to resort to lies and hyperbole.

Their biggest fear is that we will band together. Once this happens, we gain control and can bring back a whole lot of common sense.
 

Fullpan

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I sure wish we could gain access to the big newspapers in Ca. (Sacramento Bee and S.F. Chronicle). If an article came out with excitement about the "six
gold bars" rah-rahing the unique historical significance of 300 ounces found in a safety deposit box, the exposure could pressure NID to display them to the
public. And a "charity auction" or at least a Sotheby's type auction would call their bluff on this. Think about it, a very unusual circumstance and unique
historical "artifacts" and they're just gonna cash out? Hard to believe!

P.s. - the "71 percent pure gold" bothers me. I routinely cashed dust in that town and received 80% of spot price for it. So melting into bars
from the same area suddenly REDUCES the gold purity? Something smells.
 

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bedrock bubba

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And the gold anode would not have to be solid gold, it could be plated, much cheaper. And why not charge it with electricity from a battery with low voltage?

Use gold plated riffles, to grab the big merc, then have it all drop into a box, with an anode and a cathode, to get the really small stuff?

I will have to dig out my metalurgical books and study this more.

Is gold attracted to mercury, or is the mercury attracted to the gold? A BIG question!

Outfit every dredge we have this way, and apply for a mercury recovery permit, and we can all go to work!!!

Of course, a byproduct of this would be the gold, which we could keep!
 

bedrock bubba

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I sure wish we could gain access to the big newspapers in Ca. (Sacramento Bee and S.F. Chronicle). If an article came out with excitement about the "six
gold bars" rah-rahing the unique historical significance of 300 ounces found in a safety deposit box, the exposure could pressure NID to display them to the
public. And a "charity auction" or at least a Sotheby's type auction would call their bluff on this. Think about it, a very unusual circumstance and unique
historical "artifacts" and they're just gonna cash out? Hard to believe!

P.s. - the "71 percent pure gold" bothers me. I routinely cashed dust in that town and received 80% of spot price for it. So melting into bars
from the same area suddenly REDUCES the gold purity? Something smells.

You're right!

N.Sierra gold often comes right out of the river at 88-92 fine. And even crude smelting would give you a lot better than 71%.

It seems that gold must have come from somewhere else, ot the whole story is BS!
 

Oakview2

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Bee or Chronicle will never print the truth, just their version of it. I would try a local to the area newspaper, and a up and cominen g investigative reporter or even a blogger that is trying to make a name for themselves. Get somebody to put in local print, you can hawk it to drudgereport.com, Hannity, ICMJ, Western Mining Association


gold bars" rah-rahing the unique historical significance of 300 ounces found in a safety deposit box, the exposure could pressure NID to display them to the
public. And a "charity auction" or at least a Sotheby's type auction would call their bluff on this. Think about it, a very unusual circumstance and unique
historical "artifacts" and they're just gonna cash out? Hard to believe!

P.s. - the "71 percent pure gold" bothers me. I routinely cashed dust in that town and received 80% of spot price for it. So melting into bars
from the same area suddenly REDUCES the gold purity? Something smells.[/QUOTE]
 

Fullpan

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OK, here's the latest strategy from the Sierra Fund. After running us dredgers out, they are asking the Governor to give them a chunk of the billion dollar
water bond that is upcoming. They will use it to do Combie and other reservoirs, and move on to dredge the rivers - probably with same equipment we use,
but with "emergency waivers" as their s**t don't stink.

ACTION ALERT: Sign on to TSF?s letter to support funding for legacy mine cleanup
 

Aufisher

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Please send donations to the "Dredge the Sierra Fund". It's environmentaly sound when it fits their interests.
 

Alex Burke

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Truth is stranger than fiction. Who do they call once they raise the money for the clean-up? I'm going to assume the same company as in NY that is dredging the Hudson. They have to use small dredges for their plan and gold is going to be a by-product. Doesn't this in essence help the argument for allowing small time miners back in the water because they are agreeing dredges don't pollute they in fact remove pollutants.
 

Nordin

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Why cant you, you all american dredgers volountair to clean up the lake and the areas mentioned? I assume that many of you guys/girls can do it for free. Keep.in mind that those people are cheap millionaires, they are always looking for another way to save/earn some money.

Please excuse my English at the moment, quite filled with american spirits!



Skickat från min Nexus 4 via Tapatalk 2
 

Fullpan

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Welcome to the forum, Nordin! - that is a good question, in fact many of us have suggested we propose a plan doing just that (volunteering to clean the site
for free). Problem is, after doing some common sense study, we decided the vast majority of material (silt) clogging up the reservoirs contains very little gold
and/or toxic mercury. There IS a large amount of gold/mercury at the upstream entrance to the lakes, but dredging to remove the silt will not reach that far
into the inlet area before "mission accomplished". In 2002 over reaction and hysteria closed down regular maintenance dredging because some theoretical
scientist decided that 2 parts per million of mercury in the sediment was an "emergency". Not one case of mercury poisoning to justify the hysteria over mercury contamination, but the powerful agencies and enviros could care less, as they will eventually get taxpayer funding to complete this pilot project, where we miners have to consider economics - profit and/or loss which paints us out of the picture. The estimated 9 million dollars for clean-up is just the beginning.
After a couple more years they will dredge the lake again to maintain water storage capacity so add another 9 million times about 50 other reservoirs in the same situation - so it will become a runaway train of money flowing into a bottomless hole.
 

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Mad Machinist

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Why cant you, you all american dredgers volountair to clean up the lake and the areas mentioned? I assume that many of you guys/girls can do it for free. Keep.in mind that those people are cheap millionaires, they are always looking for another way to save/earn some money.

Please excuse my English at the moment, quite filled with american spirits!



Skickat från min Nexus 4 via Tapatalk 2

Nordin,

The biggest problem is this:

These eco groups have spent so many years convincing everybody that all these things were bad that now they CANNOT afford to let anybody see the truth for fear of them being driven back under the rocks they crawled out from under.

If we were allowed to do this project in would cast more than a little doubt on everything they have pushed through (of course that is already happening in some areas). They would lose their jobs and have to go to work in the real world where the vast majority of them would be stuck asking if you would like fries with that.

This brings to mind a question I asked one of my Professors that stopped him in his tracks one day. And that question was, "If we as humans and a species are so bad for the environment, then why do we have laws against mass murder and suicide? If we are so bad, then why are Hilter, Stalin, Lenin, Pol Pot, and a whole host of others called monsters instead of environmental heroes?"

They have to really push right now because they do understand that many of us are in college for everything from Environmental Science to Entomology and everything in between. They understand that the gravy train is losing its biscuit wheels and they are going to have a very hard time surviving in the real world so they have to build up a cash reserve while they can.
 

Fullpan

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That first sentence is sooo true, MM - not only are they lying about "evil mercury" - at Combie reservoir they have started to claim a million dollars of gold
is in the silt. Any mining operation who wants to make a profit would do core samples before making such outrageous statements.

My guess would be about 25-50 thousand out of 200,000 tons of silt.
 

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bedrock bubba

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Fullpan, there is an article today(8-29) in theunion.com about the battle between Liz martin of Sierra Fund, and the dredgers! Can you copy and paste it? I cant seem to do that.
 

Fullpan

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Yes, me too - they want 10.50/month for WEB ACCESS when every other paper in Calif. has free access. What a bunch of ***holes. Maybe someone in the area can copy and paste, or at least give us the jist of the article?
 

jcazgoldchaser

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Fullpan, there is an article today(8-29) in theunion.com about the battle between Liz martin of Sierra Fund, and the dredgers! Can you copy and paste it? I cant seem to do that.
I couldn't make it past "Nation’s Single Men Announce Plan To Change Bedsheets By 2019" :happysmiley:
 

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