The State Agency gold mining study work group meeting on Monday May 16 caught the attention of Joe Dashiell, senior reporter for WDBJ7 TV out of Roanoke and Richmond. Joe managed to distill well the essentials of the advisements of speaker Steve Emerman.

From the article: Mining consultant Steven Emerman discussed the byproduct of mining known as tailings and the ongoing responsibility for their management.

“The tailings dam can never be dismantled. It’s got to confine those toxic tailings forever,” Emerman said. “And we ask the question, are they going to be maintained forever?”

And he said the use of cyanide for gold extraction can also leave a toxic legacy.

“This is my real recommendation, just don’t do it. Don’t allow gold mining in Virginia,” Emerman said. “This comes back to my initial point that gold mining is all risk and no benefit, and just don’t do it.”

See and read the WDBJ7 story here.

This well informed state agency meeting was recorded and will be available on the Virginia Energy Gold Mining Study page. Meanwhile you can check out this link:
https://covaconf.webex.com/recordingservice/sites/covaconf/recording/9e0033e6b74e103a9fff00505681e464/playback         Password     Xk7yfPpq

Presenter Steven Emerman begins at 30 minutes. David Pellow at 60 minutes.

The meeting was informed by:

Steven H. Emerman Owner, Malach Consulting: Specializing in Groundwater and Mining. Consulting Areas: Hydrologic modeling, geophysical interpretation, geostatistics, satellite image interpretation, embankment and tailings dams, environmental arsenic and heavy metals, scientific translation

Professor David N. Pellow is the Dehlsen and Department Chair of Environmental Studies and Director of the Global Environmental Justice Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara.