State panel studies potential impact of gold mining in Virginia

BUCKINGHAM, Va. (WDBJ) – Earlier than the California gold rush, Virginia was a significant gold producer. And now that an organization is prospecting for the dear metallic once more in central Virginia, a state job pressure is taking a more in-depth have a look at the potential affect of gold mining within the Commonwealth.

The corporate Aston Bay Holdings has been actively prospecting in an space with recognized deposits, drilling core samples on property in Buckingham County.

Monday morning, members of the Gold Mining Examine Work Group held their fourth assembly in Buckingham County and on-line. The session included consultants who raised main considerations concerning the environmental and social prices of gold mining.

Mining guide Steven Emerman mentioned the byproduct of mining often known as tailings and the continued accountability for his or her administration.

“The tailings dam can by no means be dismantled. It’s acquired to restrict these poisonous tailings eternally,” Emerman stated. “And we ask the query, are they going to be maintained eternally?”

And he stated using cyanide for gold extraction may depart a poisonous legacy.

“That is my actual advice, simply don’t do it. Don’t enable gold mining in Virginia,” Emerman stated. “This comes again to my preliminary level that gold mining is all threat and no profit, and simply don’t do it.”

A part of the state’s evaluation of gold mining features a research of the potential impacts by The Nationwide Academies of Science, Engineering and Drugs.

That group will maintain a listening session subsequent week in Buckingham County, with a report anticipated earlier than the tip of the yr.

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