There is always another side to mining. Here is a story from an email I received this week. I present it as received. Look to your comments.
Hello,
I am a small rancher with a ranch a couple of miles from the New Gold Davidson Project. I would like to get my story out there about the encounters with these people. We have suggested they purchase our ranch so we can get out of their way but they won’t consider it. Please read my story and let me know if you are interested in publishing it.
We are located approximately 100 miles south of Vanderhoof on a remote ranch with open range for cattle. We bought the ranch, which has 212.8 acres, in 2003 with 1 old cabin, no running water or electricity for our cow/calf operation. We have now cleared land for hay meadows, fenced pastures, built 9 new buildings and added onto the house. We now have a modern home with electricity, powered by generators and battery backup, running water, internet, tv and phone. We built a good 3 km road off the main road for access. We seeded down about 180 acres for hay land for winter feed. We have a very large grazing lease approximately 25 kms by 30 kms square. We also have a hay cutting lease outside of our personal land for winter feed. We do our own ranching, no outside help or employees. My wife and I and now my daughter who just graduated from high school have started her own herd.
We build and grow every year but it’s hard to work now knowing that your place is worth less everyday with a gold mine growing approximately 2 miles away. Also, with other claims and drilling all around us.
We never had contact with New Gold, until last summer we noticed a road being put in down the road from us. When we started asking questions to the forestry about what was going on, we were told we should have been notified about the mine going in. New Gold had told them that they had been in contact with all the land owners around the area but in fact they hadn’t. After complaining that we weren’t notified, 2 people from the New Gold camp came to see us last fall. They told us how nothing was going to affect us in any way. How can they say that when the mine is only a couple miles from us? They are on the top of the mountain, we are at the foot of it. Water is going to flow down into our creek that runs right in front of our house, goes through our property and throughout our range land. Our cattle drink it, we drink it and it’s water for our hayland. They don’t really want anything from us, we feel that they just want us to stop bothering them.
How they are interfering with our operation – the biggest is the devaluation of our property. We have a really nice place but we couldn’t sell it now with a gold mine in our back yard. We are the closest private property to them. Who would want to buy such a place. This is not a remote ranch anymore in which we bought it as. Our main road use to be maintained through the summer and winter very well and the loggers had respect for it by getting off the road in the spring when the frost went out. But now the miners had it destroyed for all of us this spring. Ask any logger or maintenance crew from Canfor Lumber. There are so many people out here it’s like trying to farm in town with cows not knowing where to go to get away from people while trying to eat grass and watch there young. They are harassed everyday. We moved here also for the peace and quiet and now we have noise and beer cans and trash down the road. Our cattle use to eat along the roads but now they don’t. Besides being chased, they still don’t eat much there because when it is wet the grass is all mud and when it’s dry it’s all dust. So now we have put them in our hay meadows where we should be making hay for next winter. Instead we will have to buy most or all of it. It’s a constant battle arguing with the miners and their people and very stressful trying to ranch in the middle of construction and mining. So we are just sick of people lying to us, acting stupid about the whole deal. Talk about acting stupid, when we had a meeting with them on Tuesday, they wouldn’t admit that they use the only road between their mines which also go dead center through our range, or that they bought the Silverquest mine. They also wouldn’t admit that they are part owner in Independence Gold who is building a new camp in the middle of our range about 1 mile from us. But since they said all that, we now got an email saying they checked into it and now they admit it. Waste of time!!! It’s all on the internet under New Gold Blackwater Project and RJK Explorations. They also insist there isn’t a mine up at the camp, it’s just an exploration site. The gold they tested is poor quality and might not amount to anything, if so, they will be gone this fall. What I am told they tell the newspeople, townspeople and investers is totally a different story!!!
We have talked to the miners and we are getting nowhere and nobody is helping us at all. We thought we had help thru the forestry but what is a few little ranches opinions worth next to some big mining companies with big money behind them! Yes we have talked to a few newspaper people and a TV station but the next few days we hope we can get something going. We cannot afford to get in a big lawyer like the miner would maybe like to see so we are hoping someone wants to help us out and get this to the public. I would like to bring this up to the national news if that is what it takes. Yes some are real interested but I don’t know who wants to go against a big mining company.
I don’t know what happens after this. We will have to wait and see what happens to this, but I am thinking of a few things now.
Thank you, Wayne Daul
Here from the mine’s website is the project description:
Blackwater is one of New Gold’s three exciting future growth projects and is located approximately 160 kilometres southwest of Prince George in central British Columbia. The project was acquired by New Gold in June of 2011 through New Gold’s acquisition of Richfield Ventures Corp. (“Richfield”). New Gold looks forward to continuing the exploration of this project with the goal of ultimately bringing it through development and into production.
The Blackwater Project area has been actively explored since the discovery of anomalous concentrations of silver, lead, and zinc in silt samples taken from streams draining the Mt. Davidson area in 1973 by Granges Inc. Historic work includes soil geochemistry, geophysics and reverse circulation and diamond drilling.
Richfield’s work on the Blackwater Gold Project began in 2009 when the company recognized the bulk gold potential on the property. In March 2009 Richfield optioned the Davidson and Dave claims from Silver Quest Resources Ltd. and the Rozek family respectively.
The initial mineral resource estimate for the Blackwater Project was published in March 2011 and was based on 25,263 metres of drilling in 77 holes. An updated mineral resource estimate was published in September 2011 and added an additional 71 holes (24,660 metres) to the March estimate, bringing the total number of core holes to 148 (49,223 metres).
An updated Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resource estimate announced March 7, 2012 represents drilling results through December 2011. It estimated an Indicated Resource of 5.5 million ounces of gold and an Inferred Resource of 2.3 million ounces of gold at a 0.4 gram per tonne cut-off grade.
During 2012, the Company intends to drill approximately 500 holes totalling over 200,000 metres at the Blackwater Project. Objectives of the program include:
- a drilling program to explore and delineate the Blackwater Mineral Resource to Measured and Indicated classification to support a feasibility study in 2013;
- an exploration drilling program to test the mineral potential of adjacent areas being considered for future site facilities and infrastructure;
- and a reconnaissance drilling program to test other targets within the Company’s greater mineral properties comprising the Blackwater Project.
The Company will also conduct a property wide surface reconnaissance program to identify new exploration targets for future drill testing during 2012.
