City of Grass Valley Imposes Final Application Deadline on Emgold
Press Release
By Citizens Looking At Impacts of Mining (CLAIM-GV)
claim@claim-gv.org
March 15, 2012
On Thursday, March 13, Grass Valley City Council set a final 180-day time limit for Emgold to come up with the required deposits for their flagship project, the Idaho-Maryland Mine and Ceramics Factory. If Emgold fails to deposit approximately $440,000 within 180 days, the project application will be closed.
Emgold had previously requested a 60-90 day extension by the City Council on Nov 8, 2011, citing a lack of funds and difficult market conditions. But at Thursday’s meeting Emgold CEO David Watkinson reported that no progress had been made and still more time was needed. Further delays are complicating staffing for the city and may require new contracts to be negotiated. The City made the concession of granting more time, but this time chose to set a firm limit on further extensions. The initial deposit is required for staffing and independent consultants. Emgold will need another $3-4 million to complete the permitting process. If the permit is granted, revenue generating production would take an additional 3-4 years.
As per financial reports on September 30, 2011, Emgold had a working capital deficit of $695,764 and an accumulated deficit of $49,327,646. CEO David Watkinson has a salary of $185,000/yr. According to a recent statement by Emgold, the stock offerings in late 2011 were specifically to be used for projects other than the Idaho-Maryland Mine and Factory and for general administration and salaries. No explanation was provided as to why the stock offerings were directed elsewhere.
Emgold is a Canadian “Junior Mining” corporation and has never operated a mine or tile factory. If Emgold has failed to get funding to date, the 180 days may also be a challenge. According to Peter Koven writing for the Financial Post last week (March 6, 2012), the outlook for Junior Mining Companies is very poor: “For juniors that don’t have a good story or a competitive advantage to raise cash, experts warned that the financing road could remain tough for a very long time.”
The City first accepted the application for the project in 2005. The last public hearing on the project was in January 2009, when the Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) was reviewed by the Planning Department and the public submitted comments. The DEIR was subsequently deemed inadequate. Due to concerns about truck traffic, air pollution, noise, cyanide processing, water pollution, dust, threats to local wells, and other impacts, significant opposition to the project has emerged. Since then the project has undergone minor revisions and been resubmitted. On November 8, 2011, the Grass Valley City Council approved contracts for hiring new consultants to start the process again and prepare a new Draft EIR. The process will take at least a year.
Citizens Looking At Impacts of Mining (CLAIM-GV) is a Grass Valley non-profit whose mission is to protect the community’s natural environment, public health and safety, and economic sustainability relative to mine re-openings and/or developments. CLAIM-GV’s many volunteers focus on gathering the relevant information, analyzing it, and making it available to the public.
Random Thoughts on Optimism vs Pessimism
By Don Pelton
There’s an interesting philosophical aspect to the issue of optimism vs pessimism that’s worth more study and more comment. Here are a few random thoughts.
Both optimism and pessimism are bets on the future, and therefore subject to all sorts of contingencies including bad judgment, misinformation (noise in the communication), disinformation (getting “snowed”), guile, wishful thinking, acts of God, intention and will, efforts to persuade, and so on.
Among these contingencies the most interesting to me at the moment is the self-fulfilling nature of those contrary optimistic and pessimistic bets (hinted at in my list above with the items “intention and will” and “efforts to persuade”).
In other words …
If this is true — and I believe it is — zealous, relentless optimism (or conversely zealous, relentless pessimism) becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy which can win the day. (The “assumption of inevitability” often noted in George W. Bush’s political campaigns may be a Machiavellian version of this phenomenon on the optimistic side).
In other words, optimism and pessimism are each more than mere predictions or guesses about the future.
They are your active contribution to the creation of that future, for which you must forever take responsibility.
As such, your pessimism or your optimism is more than a mere brick in the structure — the vast building — that becomes the future for us all. Your pessimism or your optimism is your contribution to the blueprint — the plan, the shape — of that building.
One of the obstacles to our recognition of this contribution is our skepticism about the power of collective action, the idea that our own small act added to the aggregate of all the small acts of others has any weight or influence at all.
But think of voting. I’m suggesting that optimism and pessimism are effective collective acts in somewhat the same sense (and on somewhat the same scale) that voting is an effective collective act. Optimism and pessimism are each a vote for the imagined outcome.
Of course, I am speaking only of one quality of optimism and pessimism, a quality which may emerge as powerful or recede as inconsequential in any particular case.
Understanding all this may allow us to see ourselves more as agents of change than we normally believe possible.
We may be more influential agents of change — for good or for ill — than we usually imagine.
So beware, if you take an optimistic stance, or a pessimistic stance … beware and consider carefully what responsibility you yourself may have for the outcome.
Consider to what extent your pessimism or your optimism reflects your own subconscious desire for that outcome. (This is more than a little paradoxical, since the very word, “pessimism,” carries the connotation of a fear of — or aversion to — the predicted outcome. The paradox may (?) be resolved by understanding the conflict between the conscious and the unconscious. The unconscious has an agenda of its own, not always obvious to the conscious mind).
There’s a phenomenon long known to psychologists, the tendency to manifest what you imagine, regardless of whether the image that seizes you provokes fear or desire.
It’s the proverbial case of the driver so obsessed with avoiding the oncoming telephone poll that he crashes into it.
I once so worried about tripping on some stairs leading up to a stage where I was about to speak before an audience of hundreds that I tripped and fell on the stairs when my name was called.
The tendency for what is imagined to manifest in reality is one of those mainstays of the New Age movement (mixed up with a lot of other sentimental nonsense that also characterized that movement).
Consider whether you are ready to take responsibility for what you predict (whether desired or feared).
And consider how your understanding of that responsibility should guide your actions.
Maybe this too is what is meant by “in dreams begin responsibilities.”
cc: ActiveWorkingMentalFile
In a Surprise Move, Grass Valley City Council Sets Hard Deadline for Emgold
In a surprise move this evening, the Grass Valley City Council went well beyond what was strictly required of them and took action on a formally non-action agenda item, by imposing a “final” and hard deadline of six months for Emgold to secure financing to complete the Draft Environmental Impact Report on its Idaho-Maryland Mine Project.
Council members made it clear that there will be no more extensions, and that the application will be deemed dead if Emgold fails to secure financing by the six-month deadline. Technically, the project could then be restarted from the beginning with a new application, but it’s anyone’s guess whether that is even likely. Since Emgold has used all its recent fundraising to finance its efforts on projects in Nevada, my guess is that this hard deadline may signal the end of Emgold’s long quest to re-open the Idaho-Maryland Mine in Grass Valley.
Most public commenters urged the council to impose a hard deadline, and — in the end – it seemed that the council heard and responded to their arguments.
When Emgold CEO Dave Watkinson suggested to the council that the city was sometimes the obstacle to progress, councilmember Lisa Swarthout quickly reminded him that the subject this evening was Emgold and not the city. This seemed like an ominous reproach.
I had hoped to post the video of the IMM discussion this evening, but it appears that NCTV may have dropped the ball and not broadcast it (I scheduled it, but got only a black screen for a recording). If it turns up on Granicus, I may be able to capture it and post it here.
My strong impression is that the Grass Valley City Council may be getting a bit impatient with Emgold’s endless stalling and delays.
Stay tuned for further developments.
How to Stop the Corporate Erosion of Our Democracy
Here’s a short video (8+ minutes) explaining why 85% of Americans (regardless of political party) believe corporations have too much power, and what we can do about it.
Democracy May Be Coming to a Town Near You
John Nichols, writing in the (Madison, Wisconsin) Cap Times, calls the recent Move-to-Amend resolutions passed by 64 Vermont towns “a clarion call for renewal of democracy.”
Soon enough, we’ll have a chance to push this issue here in Nevada County.
Nichols explains:
Inspired by the success of the Vermont initiative, the Democracy Is for People Campaign is now launching the Resolutions Week project, which will encourage communities across the country to follow Vermont’s lead. The goal is to get as many local pro-amendment resolutions as possible passed in the second week of June. “Already,” organizers say, “more than 500 Public Citizen activists in 300 cities and towns have signed up to help pass resolutions in their towns.”
Public Citizen is coordinating the Resolutions Week campaign with national groups, such as the Communications Workers of America, U.S. PIRG, the Main Street Alliance, the Move to Amend coalition and People for the American Way, as well as state-based partners.
Stay tuned …
