Several Sierra trails are toxic, group says

[villager]

Several Sierra trails are toxic, group says

Kelly Zito, Chronicle Staff Writer

The thousands of mine shafts that pockmark the Sierra Nevada and testify to California's Gold Rush riches have also left a legacy of toxic contamination in some of the state's popular recreation areas, according to a new study.

Soil tests on a handful of trails near mine mouths in the foothills have revealed extremely high levels of lead, arsenic and asbestos, said researchers at the Sierra Fund, a small environmental advocacy group.

The naturally occurring minerals were pounded to dust generations ago and carted to the surface, where they are now stirred up and inhaled by hikers, off-roaders, bikers and horseback riders.


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/06/23/MN2E1E36I7.DTL#ixzz0rhgKbRYt
<snip>

[MineralMan]

1. OH. I thought this thread was about Backpacker Droppings.

Never mind. :shrug:

[villager]

2. Does someone with a Fat Freddy's Cat avatar really want to make "droppings" jokes?

;-)

[MineralMan]

4. I'd be checking your shoes for awhile, if I were you...

Insulting Fat Freddy's Cat is not at all wise.

Just sayin...

Fat Freddy's Cat sez: You pee in my drink, I crap in your shoe!

[villager]

5. at the moment, I'm in slippers, but I consider myself thusly alerted!

:D

[Hell Hath No Fury]

3. As someone who is thinking about moving to --

a former mining town in the Sierras (Placervile) this is really giving me something to think about. :(

[villager]

6. It occurred to me this is like "BP in the mountains..."

...a toxic legacy that "keeps on givin'," for generations...

[glitch]

20. As someone who already lives here,

me too. :(

[MineralMan]

7. Oddly enough, natural erosion has spread all those contaminants

througout the Sierra Nevada mountains. Geology is like that. Asbestos is a mineral. Natural outcroppings in the Sierra Nevada foothills can be up to 50% serpentine and chrysotile. Asbestos. They've been weathering away and shedding asbestos fibers for millenia. Lead and arsenic are components of some of the minerals that occur in those mountains, as is gold, sulfur, mercury, and many other toxic materials. Natural processes have spread those same things throughout the area, and down the rivers into the valleys both east and west of the Sierra Nevada range. So much more has entered into the environment due to natural causes than by the puny efforts of humans that there is actually no valid comparison between the two.

Is it somewhat more concentrated where mining took place? Yes. Is it a real hazard to the hikers who trek past those old mines? No. It is a manufactured, imaginary crisis, rather than a real one.

As someone who has hiked many Sierra Nevada trails, collecting mineral specimens, and looking for them often in old mine tailings, I can tell you that the risks are minimal to casual passers-by, or even those who look for small treasures in the tailings.

My blood lead and arsenic levels are no higher than the national average and I've been handling minerals all my life.

Blown completely out of proportion is what this is.

[villager]

8. I suppose it might depend how much time one spent near the highest concentrations...

...but the news item is revelatory about the long-term consequences of natural processes.

The sun gives us radiation, after all. Doesn't mean we want nuclear tailings piled around us...

[MineralMan]

9. Yes, and far more people die from sun-induced melanoma than

from walking past old mines. In fact, if you can find me a single case where someone was harmed in any way by walking past gold mine tailings, I will be astonished. An assessment of actual risks, compared to background levels is always good.

Life is full of risk. Most of those risks are natural ones. For a man-made one to be of any importance, there has to be some evidence of harm. Handwaving over "possible" harm is valueless.

[villager]

10. Restraining corporate excess, however, is not value-less

Nor is being aware of the time-lines of their "leavings," detritus, etc...

[MineralMan]

12. But that's not the topic of this thread. The gold mines in the

Sierras were relatively small...especially those which would be encountered by hikers. They were one or two person operations. No corporate situations. You see, you're projecting contemporary mining on these small operations from a long, long time ago.

Now, there were large gold mining operations using powerful jets of water to wash away entire hillsides, but those are not the mines being discussed in this thread.

You cannot extend your concerns about corporations doing large-scale mining to these small, historical mines that people hike by on the trails. When you try to do that, or anyone tries to that, it is foolishness and is easily seen through. That diminishes the larger argument.

I suspect that you don't know a lot about gold mining in the Sierra Nevada mountains. I do. You can reject what I'm saying, but you'll be wrong and be pushing incorrect information. I leave it up to you, but will be here to counter misinformation, whenever it crops up.

[villager]

16. Your condescension aside, the article speaks tellingly to the "unforeseen" consequences

... of industrial processes, which the Sierra Nevadas experienced earlier (I suspect you don't know a lot about California history), in terms of various forms of mining, deforestation, etc...

We're seeing an even more immediate, destructive version of that in the Gulf right now.

You can try to minimize the consequences of corporate recklesness, or refuse to see the implications of the article, but you'd be wrong. If the small mines left this much "residue," decades later -- regardless of whether you your all-knowing self had maximal exposure to that residue -- we can in fact extrapolate what other industrial processes have done, and are doing.

Again, you're free to minimize all that to make your rather narrow point -- I leave it up to you.

[XemaSab]

11. I've been working on hydropower relicensing in that area

and lemme tell ya, gold mining in the Sierras might just be our biggest ever environmental catastrophe.

The scale of it is STAGGERING.

[MineralMan]

13. That is true only of the hydraulic mining sites. The mines that have

an entrance into the side of the mountain are nothing like that. They were small-scale operations. The big hydraulic mines don't have trails going through them.

[XemaSab]

14. I'm talking about all the mining in the Sierras taken as a whole

including the buildings, water diversions, and so forth.

[MineralMan]

15. But, that has nothing to do with the subject of this thread.

You could start a new thread about your concerns.

[XemaSab]

19. Trust me

It's totally relevant.

Water quality reports know no source.

[Nikki Stone1]

17. K & R

.

[laughingliberal]

18. As a resident of a nearby area, thank you for posting this.

rec