Amador County – A recent tour of abandoned mine sites in the Mother Lode highlighted pollution and other risks remaining since the California Gold Rush for a team of congressional staff members from the House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources. According to David Christy of the Bureau of Land Management Central California Division, BLM hosted a field tour at the subcommittee’s request after a hearing November 23 in Sacramento on risks from abandoned mine lands. The tour group included 20th District Congressman and committee chair Jim Costa, 4th District Representative Tom McClintock, and representatives from BLM, the U.S. Forest Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Geological Survey, the State Water Resources Control Board, the State Department of Toxic Substances Control and the Sierra Fund. The tour visited the remnants of large hydraulic mining operations at the You Bet pit north of Colfax, a tunnel at the BLM South Yuba River campground and the Davis stamp mill, where ore was further processed to extract gold. One major culprit to the environment is mercury, which renders fish unsafe to eat and risks the health of at least 100,000 people, according to one recent study by University of California Davis ecologist Fraser Shilling. He said the pollution disproportionately hurts poorer populations who rely on fishing from local waterways to supplement their diets. “Tens of thousands of subsistence anglers and their (families) are consuming greater than 10 times the U.S. EPA recommended dose of mercury, which puts them at immediate risk of neurological and other harm,” Schilling told the Associated Press. The California Gold Rush left behind at least 550 mercury mines. Many mercury mines have been cited as the biggest sources of pollution across northern California, from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to the San Francisco Bay. According to a study by Canadian scientists, the three largest points for mercury emissions in the United States are the three largest gold mines, and gold production accounts for 11 percent of worldwide mercury pollution. Christy said the subcommittee’s mine tour addressed this and other issues, and stressed “cooperation by numerous agencies in addressing the risks due to mixed land ownerships and agency responsibilities and expertise.” He said the “source of mercury on BLM land may be on private land further upstream, so a coordinated effort is needed to successfully clean up the site.” Other aspects of the tour included viewing a tunnel at the Yuba River campground with a culvert that allowed bats to enter but keeps people out. Story by Alex Lane This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.