Gold Mining and Wildlife

In “Gold Mining Cyanide Blamed in Wildlife Deaths” (Part I, April 18), Rep. Mel Levine (D-Santa Monica) and the Wilderness Society call for an “investigation” of wild animal kills at “heap leach” mining operations in California and Nevada.

Thus, large-scale gold mining, one of the U.S. industries that is effectively competing with everybody else in the world, and which provides direct, well-paid employment for about 10,000 people in remote areas of California and Nevada, is to be “investigated” with all that implies, because of a claimed animal kill of less than 1% of the sports kill.

The Wilderness Society claims there were a total of 6,400 wild animal deaths due to cyanide at mining operations during the past 5 years. For the 93 mines considered, this amounts to about 1 kill per month per mine. The reporting of a total kill of 6,400 animals since 1984 implies that lots of deer and foxes have been killed. It is far more likely that essentially all the reported 6,400 animals were birds and small animals like rabbits. To put the matter in perspective, during the 1988-89 three-month hunting season 78,000 migratory waterfowl were reported killed by sport hunters in California federal and state preserves. This doesn’t include any hunting in Nevada, on other public lands, or on private lands. In other words, this claimed total is clearly less than 1% of the total kill by sportsmen in the two states. The claimed total would be even more insignificant if road kills were considered.

The article does not discuss the fact that all mining operations are subject to extremely severe permit requirements, which consider all phases of the project and an extensive environmental impact report. Nor does the article make it clear that the leach ponds are small and that the measures used to keep birds and small animals out are extremely effectively. The permit process includes a comprehensive shutdown and restoration plan.

Large-scale gold mining as practiced in the California and Nevada deserts is an excellent example of how the U.S. should apply technology to increase productivity. It is a capital-intensive activity which enables American mining companies to compete internationally, while paying good wages to a hard-working and productive group of employees.

I think our elected representatives should devote themselves to enhancing U.S. competitiveness, not to “investigating” an unsubsidized, responsible industry.

HAROLD STEINGOLD

Santa Monica