Endangered Species Act defender to speak at Monday's Carson City Democratic tele-luncheon
Featured speaker at Monday's virtual Democratic luncheon will be Patrick Donnelly, Nevada State Director of the Center for Biological Diversity. He will explain the Center's opposition to the proposed expansion of the Long Canyon Mine near Wells.
The mine, which opened in 2016, produced more than 170,000 ounces of gold in 2018 and generated more than $3 million in net proceeds of minerals taxes, but Donnelly warns that the expansion plan threatens to dry up springs, harm wildlife and destroy cultural resources.
The Long Canyon Mine dispute pits Elko County's most productive gold mine against five environmental groups along with the Confederate Tribes of the Goshute Reservation, who face losing their freedom to live, hunt and pray there. The project includes a dewatering plan that would pump billions of gallons of water annually from the deep, carbonate aquifer that underlies the Pequop Range and Goshute Valley. Dewatering involves lowering the water table below the depth needed for people and machines to work in the mine. The volume of water involved in this one project is more than half the amount consumed annually across the Reno-Sparks area.
The pumping threatens to disrupt natural flows to the Johnson Springs Wetlands Complex, a network of 88 springs, and potentially harm species like the Relict Dace fish, which is under consideration for an endangered species listing, and herds of mule deer which migrate through the region. Patrick Donnelly sums up his opposition to this plan for the Reno Gazette Journal by saying, “we need to preserve our groundwater-dependent ecosystems in this state, not fritter them away for some shiny metal. This has the potential to be the single biggest mining water impact we have ever seen.”
In 2014, Patrick Donnelly earned a Bachelor of Science degree with high honors from the University of California, Berkeley. His field of study was Conservation & Resource Studies. He served as Editor-in-Chief of the Phi Beta Kappa blog. Between 2014 and 2016 he served as Executive Director of the Amargosa Conservancy. He joined the Center for Biological Diversity as its Executive Director in March of 2017.
Sponsored by the Democratic Men's Committee, this event is scheduled for noon on Monday, July 6th, and will be held online via Zoom teleconference due to the temporary shutdown of in-person venues. Those wishing to be on distribution for a link to the teleconference can email Rich Dunn, Men's Committee Events Coordinator, at richdunn@aol.com.
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