Environmentalists are hailing the shutdown of a major gold mine in northeastern Nevada as the first step towards cleaning up contaminated waterways as far away as southern Idaho, including the renowned waters of Silver Creek, south of Bellevue.
At the core of a yearlong investigation by the state that led to the closure are mercury emissions from the massive Jerritt Canyon Mine, which is near Idaho's southern border about 50 miles north of Elko. The investigation convinced state officials to order the shutdown of the gold mine's processing plant.
Leo Drozdoff, head of the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection, said last week that his order requires Queenstake Resources' Jerritt Canyon Mine to install new, more effective emission-control equipment.
The ore "roasters," which were ordered shut down, must be upgraded by the end of the year. If the company wants to restart the roasters earlier using existing pollution-control gear, it must install new instruments to ensure the gear is operating properly.
Unlike gold mines elsewhere, mines in northern Nevada use ore roasters to superheat gold-bearing ore to several thousand degrees. In the process, mercury that occurs naturally in the rock is converted from its normal liquid state into vapor. Once vaporized, the mercury becomes airborne, officials say.
Aloft in the atmosphere, winds carry the mercury to downwind sites far from the element's original source. And because winds in northern Nevada generally trend northeast, southern Idaho is one of the most common recipients of the mercury emissions, environmentalists say.
Drozdoff said he ordered the shutdown because of the failure of the company, a subsidiary of British Columbia-based Yukon-Nevada Gold Corp., to fully comply with two previous state orders.
Graham Dickson, head of Yukon-Nevada Gold, issued a statement saying many repairs and alterations had been completed already and it was "unfortunate" that the mine was still "short of the required standard."
Dickson said that while the state's stop order was scheduled to take effect March 17, the roasters were already shut down for planned work. He said the planned shutdown shouldn't affect the mine's expected 2008 production of 120,000 ounces of gold.
When the state first moved against the Jerritt Canyon Mine in February 2007, Queenstake issued a statement saying the company would spend about $500,000 on emission-control upgrades.
The state's action was the first under new regulations adopted by Nevada to control airborne mercury emissions at precious-metals mines.
The Jerritt Canyon Mine is just one of about 25 large gold mines operating in northern Nevada that environmentalists say are responsible for mercury contamination in southern Idaho and portions of Utah.
Most impacted by this airborne issue are Idaho's waterways and fish populations, Justin Hayes, program director for the Boise-based Idaho Conservation League, told a crowd gathered at a meeting in Hailey last December.
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