Skip to content

Emgold: Spinning Gold

Emgold: Spinning Gold

September 24, 2012 SVadmin Comments 0 Comment

By Ralph Silberstein

One must wonder at the audacity of Emgold Mining Co. For almost four years, Canadian-based Emgold has been struggling to get funding in order to move forward with the Idaho-Maryland Mine project, but now the City of Grass Valley has canceled their project application. The project was started in 2005. Emgold’s response is that “they are in a holding pattern until the markets recover” and that mining funding has gotten difficult over the last 18 months.

Is a difficult market the real problem or is this more Emgold spin?

Over three years ago Emgold announced that they were seriously seeking financing, and then, having “settled a term sheet with Dunn Capital Partners” for $6 million, the deal was suddenly and abruptly terminated by Dunn for ethical reasons. ( See the stockwatch.com article “Emgold financier Dunn says ethics behind withdrawal”. ) The reality is that Emgold has been continuously seeking funding, has no regular revenue, and has to date generated a $50 million deficit using investor’s money.

Emgold Mining has a long history of painting an overly optimistic picture of their prospects. In their reports, seemingly to attract investors, they have repeatedly made inaccurate statements, such as: the project has “strong community support”, the project is “sustainable”, or “the company is in the advanced stages of permitting…”. However, none of these stand up to examination.

Claims of community support are disingenuous. They are based on a survey which in 2006 asked the question: “Provided that appropriate environmental safeguards are in place, [would you support] allowing the Idaho Maryland gold mine to reopen?” This was before the project had been reviewed, before people knew about the massive tile factory, the traffic, the significant air pollution, the threat to wells, and many other hazards. Currently, environmental safeguards are not in place and there is strong community opposition, so the claim has no basis in fact. And when Emgold refers to this survey in news releases, they conveniently fail to mention the first part of the question about environmental safeguards being in place.

Secondly, the notion that this mining project and ceramics factory would be “sustainable” is an absurdity. This project would consume massive amounts of energy, extract whatever gold ore is left from the previous mining operations, and then shut down. This belies the definition of sustainable.

And on the third point, they could hardly be said to be in the advanced stages of permitting. It’s been known since mid 2009 that they have to do a new Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR), which then must be recirculated and reviewed, commented on in public hearings,  and voted on by the Planning Commission. Next a Final EIR must be drafted, submitted to the City for more public hearings, and approved by the City Council. Then there is the requirement for LAFCO, Office of Mining Reclamation, and other agencies to approve the project. Following that, of course, actual construction documents would need to be drawn up and submitted for approval before getting a permit and starting work. How can this possibly be considered the advanced stages of permitting?

This type of spin has persisted. A more recent example came in the Sept 7, 2012 news release, in which David Watkinson, CEO of Emgold, stated “Estimated cost of the City and its consultants to complete the EIR process is approximately US$500,000.” Yet according to City documents, the base cost of the DEIR consultant plus initial deposits to the city for other required work exceeds $565,000, and that doesn’t  include additional studies that are needed. Add to that the $100,000-150,000/month Emgold would need during the 12-18 month process, and the estimated cost exceeds $2 million.

At this point the Idaho-Maryland Mine project is back to square one. Like any new project, they haven’t  started the permitting process until they submit their project application to the City. It is not surprising, given their financial desperation, that Emgold is downplaying this fact. In their news release, Emgold states: “Management does not expect the change in status of the current Permit Applications to have any impact on completion of the EIR or on the CEQA process for the Idaho-Maryland Project (the “Project”) other than timing.”

In this one case they actually may have got it right. Even when they had an application they were going nowhere, and that remains true now that the City canceled their project.


Ralph Silberstein, President of CLAIM-GV (Citizens Looking at the Impact of Mining), is a Grass Valley City resident, a software engineer, served 2 years on the Grass Valley Planning Commission, and is a former Building Contractor.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Articles, Local

Post navigation

PREVIOUS
Low Information Voters Demand Answers (SNL Video)
NEXT
The Rain on Our Parade: A Letter to My Dismal Allies

Join Our Mailing List

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

DONATE TO THE FOOD BANK OF NEVADA COUNTY

(CLICK IMAGE)

DONATE TO NEVADA COUNTY RELIEF FUND (click image below)

Jack Kornfield: A Steady Heart in Time of Corona Virus (Part I)

Subscribe to Sierra Voices Journal

Erika Lewis, Shaye Cohn, Craig Flory – Got A Mind To Ramble

Tara Brach: A Steady Heart in Time of Corona Virus (Part II)

Recent Posts

  • How worried should you be about coronavirus variants? A virologist explains his concerns
  • Stumbling into War?
  • A new force of nature? The inside story of fresh evidence from Cern that’s exciting physicists – podcast
  • The Covid Warning Signal We’re Ignoring Could Be Disastrous
  • “This Little Light of Mine” (Good Medicine!)

Recent Comments

  • STASIA KENNEDY on Have You Done the “Great Thing” You Dreamed of Doing With Your Life?
  • Board of Supervisors Tables COVID-19 Resolution Widely Misunderstood By Nevada County Residents on Comments by Eric Robins to Board of Supervisors Concerning “Open Nevada County” Resolution
  • Douglas Keachie on The Most Urgent Issue in U.S. Politics is Not Biden or Trump, Not Who is President This Time
  • The Most Important Issue in US Politics is Not Biden or Trump, or Even Who is President This Time on How to stop an Insurrection Caucus: These reforms could reduce GOP extremism and save our democracy
  • (Posted by) Don Pelton on GOP Warns Dems About Court Packing (Cartoon)

Archives

  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • November 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • December 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • January 2014
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009

Categories

  • Aging
  • Anti-Depressant
  • Articles
  • Atlas Obscura
  • Authoritarianism
  • Black Lives
  • Black Lives Matter
  • Blog
  • Buddhism
  • Buskers
  • Capitalism
  • Cartoon
  • China
  • Climate Change
  • Constitution
  • Corona Virus
  • Corruption
  • Cosmology
  • COVID-19
  • Democracy
  • Depression
  • Disenfranchisement
  • Economics
  • Education
  • Election Fraud
  • Environment
  • Extinction
  • Farming
  • Fascism
  • Filibuster
  • Fire!
  • Food Insecurity
  • Foreign Policy
  • Forest Management
  • Fracking
  • Gardening
  • Gender
  • Health Care
  • High Country News
  • History
  • Humor
  • Hunger
  • Ignorance
  • Immigration
  • Insects
  • Labor
  • Local
  • Masks
  • Medical Care
  • Men
  • Mental Health
  • Middle Class
  • Mining
  • MMT
  • Modern Monetary Theory
  • Music
  • Native Americans
  • New Cold War
  • Nutrition
  • Oligarchy
  • Pandemic
  • Parenting
  • Physics
  • Poetry
  • Police
  • Politics
  • Populism
  • Press
  • Race
  • Reviews
  • Revolution
  • Right-wing terrorism
  • Rise Gold
  • Rivers
  • Romance
  • Russiagate
  • Science
  • Summer
  • Technology
  • Trump Virus
  • Tuba Skinny
  • Tyranny
  • Uncategorized
  • Vaccine Refusal
  • Vaccine Safety
  • Voting
  • War
  • War on Government
  • Water
  • Watersheds
  • Wildfires
  • Winter
  • Work

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
© 2021   All Rights Reserved.