По странному совпадению,там где находится ранчо Банди,где проходило аналогичное противостояние в прошлом году,и ранчо Хаммондов в Орегоне,находятся на земле,где есть большие запасы урана,золота и алмазом(расположенные в вулканических кратерах). На месте обоих ранчо в 19 веке добывали золото,пока федеральное правительство не расселило в принудительном порядке города золотоискателей 100 лет назад. В районе ранчо Хаммондов сейчас наблюдается сейсмическая активность. Маловероятно,но не исключено,что оба семейства ведут сами тайную добычу золота на своей земле .
Malheur County could soon be in the spotlight as a mining hub -- or a battleground of uranium and gold mining interests vs. environmentalists trying to protect its lonesome sagebrush landscape.
Australian-owned Oregon Energy LLC hopes to mine 18 million pounds of yellowcake uranium from the southeastern Oregon high desert 10 miles west of McDermitt near the Oregon-Nevada boundary. The go-ahead to mine the so-called Aurora uranium deposit could bring up to 250 construction jobs to the county, followed by 150 mining jobs.
Meanwhile, Calico Resources USA Corp., a subsidiary of a Vancouver, B.C., company, may seek permits this month to chemically extract microscopic gold from a high desert butte south of Vale called Grassy Mountain, a project likely to create another 100 jobs.
Mining history
Gold: Mining once was a major part of Oregon's economy and the most sought-after mineral was gold. Since its discovery in Oregon in the mid-1800s, miners have wrested an estimated 5.5 million ounces of gold from the state's streams and underground "hardrock" mines. At today's prices, that gold would bring about $1,616 per ounce. Half to two-thirds was found in northeastern Oregon. Baker County and Josephine County have had the most active claims.
Uranium: Uranium was first discovered in Oregon in the 1930s and a small amount was mined on Bear Creek Butte, 40 miles southeast of Bend, in 1960. The White King and Lucky Lass mines near Lakeview came later and there are known deposits of uranium in Baker, Clackamas, Crook, Curry, Harney, Jackson, Lake, Malheur, Polk and Union counties.
The proposals will be the first real test of the 1991 chemical processing mining law passed by the Legislature in response to a debate over mining's future in Oregon, said environmentalist Larry Tuttle. The law ushered in tough new bonding requirements to weed out marginal operators and guarantee environmental cleanup.
Approval of the Grassy Mountain project could trigger a deluge of new chemical mining in Malheur County. Up to a dozen gold deposits similar to Grassy Mountain dot the high desert between the Snake River town of Huntington and Jordan Valley.
The county, sparsely populated with only 31,313 people, could use new jobs, said County Commissioner Dan Joyce. Its unemployment rate in November was 10.3 percent, compared with 9.1 percent for Oregon and 8.6 percent for the nation.
Mining companies have passed up the county in the past because of Oregon's environmentally conscious reputation, Joyce said. But this time, the sluggish local and state economies, higher mineral prices and technological advances in mining and cleanup could open a door to mining, he said.
"I'm thinking people are a lot hungrier now than they were," Joyce said.
Uranium mine plan
Oregon Energy's proposal calls for extracting ore from a mile-long, 600-foot wide, 250-foot deep open pit 10 miles west of McDermitt and 3 miles north of the Oregon-Nevada border. The mine, adjoining the former Bretz Mercury Mine, a contaminated open-pit site from the 1960s, would cost $200 million to develop and uranium extraction could continue for up to 20 years, said Oregon Energy President Lachlan Reynolds.
Plans call for the ore to be crushed and mixed with an acid solution in enclosed vats to leach out the uranium, he said. The acid would bond with the uranium and when dry become a sand-like powder called uranium oxide concentrate, or yellowcake. Yellowcake would bring $52 per pound and could fuel nuclear reactors or be processed into weapons.
Tuttle, spokesman for the Portland-based Center for Environmental Equity, foresees environmental problems.
The likelihood of sulfuric acid being used in processing the ore means it could remain in the mine tailings after milling, he said. The snag is that sulfuric acid tends to continuously leach out heavy metals that occur naturally in waste rock and tailings, contaminating ground water.
"Just because you are through with the processing, years later you still have the issue with that interaction," he said.
But probably the biggest environmental hurdle for the Aurora mine would be the release of mercury, Tuttle said. "The whole Owyhee Reservoir has been affected by naturally occurring background mercury," and uranium mining could release more, he said.
Gold mine proposal
Environmental considerations first thrust Grassy Mountain into the consciousness of Oregonians in the late 1980s and early '90s when Newmont Gold Co. proposed introducing Nevada-style open-pit cyanide heap-leach gold mining there.
Low gold prices ultimately prompted Newmont to write off its $33.8 million investment and abandon plans to mine Grassy Mountain in 1995, but only after the site came to symbolize the conflict between economic development and environmental activism in eastern Oregon.
Calico Resources would take a dramatically different approach, said Andrew Bentz of Ontario, spokesman for Calico. The company proposes to sink an 850-foot underground shaft or tunnel to remove 1,000 tons of ore per day from Grassy Mountain, he said.
The operation expects to remove at least 425,000 ounces of gold from the mountain. The company's investment and exploration costs probably will total $100 million before mining begins, said Calico project manager Andy Gaudielle.
Mineral-bearing rock would be milled for microscopic gold in a closed chemical process that wouldn't include the bird-attracting open settling ponds of diluted cyanide that worried Newmont's opponents, said Bentz, a retired Malheur County sheriff.
Mining and reclamation of Grassy Mountain would take about 12 years, unless new gold discoveries are made, he said.
Bentz believes Calico won't face the level of environmental opposition that attended Newmont's proposal.
http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-north … or_go.html
