Gold mine coming in near my property

[ponycountry]

I bought 10 acres this spring just outside Pearce Arizona. This weekend I found out that the old mine is being reopened in perhaps 2 years, things are progressing thru the paperwork etc. There have been meetings and I have researched it since finding this out. I am troubled by the fact they will be using cyanide heap leaching which they of course claim is safe but have found where it has not. Now I am wondering if my course of action should be sell the property, or wait and see. I was hoping someone here might know more than I about this kind of thing and give me some input before I make a decision one way or the other. My property is approximately 3 miles from the mine area. As I have not yet lived there I don't know what direction the wind usually blows so if the dust will be blowing my way from the mine or not...I am up hill from the mine though but water is about 700 feet down and I would suspect it could become contaminated. There are people against it but the realtor I used is for it, says it will help the economy and bring jobs. Yes I knew there had been mining in the area, it is historical and full of ghost town lore, but I didn't know that a modern mine was in the making

[bryant]

Have you checked if your well water supply is connected underground to the mine area? They may not be, which would be a good thing. If they are going to use cyanide heap leaching, I'd be sure to find out if they are going to encapsulate the Leaching area, if they aren't then there will be cyanide getting into the ground water at some point. The best thing to do is be sure to go to any meetings and voice your concerns.

[COWS]

I would certainly have the water checked, officially, so as to have a record for future use. Other than that, I doubt if you will have trouble from 3 miles away.

I have been through Pearce many years ago. We had been through Tombstone and were on our way East. Is the old store there still? It was build in the 1890s, I think, from 3 foot thick adobe. It seems there is a large aquifer in the area. The Tombstone silver mines were shut down when the mines hit water in the late 1800s and the low price of silver did not pay for the expense of pumping water out.

COWS

[Wolf mom]

http://www.willcoxrangenews.com/news...a4bcf887a.html

You need to read ALL of this. It's from the Wilcox AZ paper in April and does address your concerns including water.

Do not get caught up in the tangential arguments regarding bringing jobs to the area. Water is a basic and if the water and land goes bad the jobs again will leave.

Just remember, water and land may be fine now, it's the future that may change this. Bisbee is still going through issues from the Lavender Mine that closed years ago. And think about the deep pockets this company has compared to yours. They'll outlast you with any future law suits.

BTW: I understand water is already expensive in that area and they want to use a heck of a lot of it!

[MichaelZ]

From the article I am reading that they will use 3000 gallons of water per minute? Wow, when I draw that much in 8 hours to fill my pool, my well starts to get low, and we have all kinds of water. I can not imagine using that much per minute!

I think the new "Gold" will soon be water in this nation. Bottled water already can cost 5-8 times the price of gasoline. Just wait until there is a shortage.

[emdeengee]

A few questions and considerations

- is your property down wind from the mine? What is the predominant wind direction? Important because of airborne transfer.

- are you downstream?

- have you tested your water for arsenic levels?

- how big will the mine effluent pond be and what safety measures does this company employ to prevent a breach?

I asked my husband and he said that he would never, ever live down wind or down stream from this kind of gold mine. He is Chief of Water Quality Research, Mine Inspections where we live.

[Nimrod]

Check your local laws. Some places require a seller to disclose any known items that effect the property. If this is true,and you can prove the seller knew about the mine opening, You may be able to sue him and recover the sale price.

It does sound like you could have found out about the mine opening if you had done your due diligence. You are probably stuck with the property and all you can do is wait and see if their operations pollute your well and make your property uninhabitable. You could be in for an expensive lesson.

As someone pointed out, you will have a tough time beating the mining company in court. They have deep pockets and all they have to so is delay, delay, delay and you will run out of money. Ain't our legal system great?

[geo in mi]

You may already know this, but in case you don't, the company published a complete report on this project in June of this year, complete with maps, yield projections, and a lot of other information which you or may not have to help you make a better decision. http://commonwealthsilver.ca/
You will have to dig a little(pun intended) to find a tab called "Presentation" to pull up a pdf. file of what the company directors are giving potential stakeholders.......the community leaders, bankers, Chamber of Commerce, and maybe even realtors.

You can look at the maps to see just where the pits and heaps will go--and how that could affect you. One thing I noticed was a mine expectancy of a little less than nine years, yet with a breakeven or payback of investment of 1.6 years based on current gold and silver prices. They state that other old mines in your area are being considered, too. They say the good ore lies as deep as 600 feet(23 meters).

It's your choice to make, of course. I would want to be able to sense if the price of gold and silver would stay at current levels for that long -- and if the mine were temporarily shut down, would the company leave town and abandon the mine--and whether it would be left in that state on the hope that prices would someday go back up. And just how would the plans to dig up the other mines would affect you. You might get that sense by looking at the history of other pit and leach heap mines--particularly in California. I don't think there's a very good history. Rather, I think the owners may comply with the "before" stuff, but then skip town at the closing end.

I would ask your realtor if he/she would be willing to put it back on the market at the same price, and sell it to one of the new, confident, rosie-eyed job seeking miners who will soon be coming into town,,,,,,, I guess you could label me as skeptical, my opinion.......

Best of luck.

geo

[Wolf mom]

Lots of old mines of different types & land in that general area are being bought up by mining conglomerations from other countries. Wouldn't be surprised if there's some state land swaps. This is not new news.

[Awnry Abe]

Before I sold, I'd dig a few holes to see if I see any sparkles that match the twinkle in my eye.

[ChristieAcres]

Sadly? I'd sell and

Every time I see thread about any kind of mining, I feel terrible for the HTer going through the agonizing decision making process of either staying or leaving. The destruction to communities when the water is contaminated is just terrible. I am very sorry to hear you are facing this in your area

[ponycountry]

Thank you everyone for your replies. I can blame myself for not doing a better job of research on the subject as this has been on-going prior to my purchase, but it was not mentioned and because while I went thru a realtor as she was showing me properties when we passed this particular property so became my buyers realtor it was still a for sale by owner and no disclosure statement was given me, though I was told one was given to the real estate agent. I am not looking to sue anyone, I just wanted to know if I am being totally paranoid in this matter or others who have been in my shoes can give me advice that it won't be as hazardous as I feel it could be.

I am west of the mine and up the hill so I would not be down stream from it, however wind has a way of whirling around at times and I am not certain what direction it is regularly blowing. I have found out the pond with cyanide will be on the south side of the hill, so away from my property and that also would drain into a different water basin if it were to leak. I have asked the main contact for the mine if the cyanide would be covered and it will not be, will have a liner, but the also will not be using a crusher so he seems to think that will eliminate the dust issue. I had read the website and figured it was time to speak to the person in charge to answer some of my concerns.

I don't think the Pearce store is open, as I came by it the other day and it appeared to have been closed for awhile. The town was basically a ghost town with only a home selling goat milk soap being open.

Water will someday be worth more than gold I believe too. We squander it now and someday people will look back and talk about how wasteful and short sighted we people were.

[ChristieAcres]

I agree, while we could use as much water as we want? We don't even water our grass! We only use water for our fruit trees and only what we have planted. There will be gray water plant system to clean that water for "water features" which will circulate. Any extra water will be used to water plants, trees, or shrubs. Our water use is conservative because we don't believe in just wasting water.

[geo in mi]

I live in the water state. Someday, maybe in my lifetime, we will be fighting over water pipelines from Lake Michigan to Arizona..... It has already been proposed. Now, if we could only load all our snow into gondola cars......

geo

[AmericanStand]

Honestly I think I would be more worried about old mines than new ones.

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want a new one but Oh MY the old ones can be worrisome !

[unregistered353870]

Originally Posted by Awnry Abe

Before I sold, I'd dig a few holes to see if I see any sparkles that match the twinkle in my eye.

Not likely to find it...they use cyanide leaching to extract gold that is essentially invisible...could be there was bigger gold they already mined out before they closed, though.

[sisterpine]

Pony, I bought a place about 8 miles north and a bit east of Pearce. I have been listening to the argument about the mine for over a decade, just like the Rosemont mine in Tucson. It is not too easy to open a mine in Arizona these days. Honestly I feel at 60+ years old I will not live long enough to be bothered by it. Not saying it is a good thing, and yes I hope they don't mess with the water supply. The agriculture in this area is sucking so much water already there likely will not be enough left for a mine of that size, sis

[ponycountry]

Thanks sisterpine. I figure I am going to go ahead with my plans and hope that it won't be the disaster it could be. REally appreciate everyones viewpoints thanks!

[fordy]

..............Most likely they'll Reprocess the tailings from the old mine , first , before they start digging ! , fordy

[emdeengee]

What sort of reclamation guarantee (funding) is in place in your state? If this re-mining does not prove to be as profitable as estimated (the price drops or the recovery is not as expected) and the company quits or goes bankrupt who will pay for the cleanup? Where I live we (the tax payers) are paying for reclamation of many mines from the 1940s 50s and 60s before guarantees were paid. In fact one mine will take 100 years to clean and reclaim.