[Vision2020] Shameless plug

[Phil Nisbet]

Janesta,

Campaign mining is the norm in Industrial Minerals.  Jack Hammond, who owns 
the old AP Green Fire Brick site, does the mining and transports the clay to 
sheds for air drying in Troy.  Mining in winter would add cost and risk.  
Mining during the wet spring and fall adds too much water to the clay and 
makes it difficult to dry in the sheds.  Any group who would plan to mine in 
the area would be doing the exact same thing that Jack does in terms of when 
the mine operated.

As for the reclamation standard, those are mandated by the Idaho Department 
of Lands and are part of the Best Management Practices for Mining Operations 
that any and all miners are required to follow now days.  IDL is pretty good 
at making sure that plans are in place and bonds put up to see that no new 
mine is not cleaned up at the end of operations.

The only thing that the current BMP's lack and which I have pushed to see 
added is consideration of requiring soils farming.  Most often the top soil 
in current operations is set aside until it is needed for final reclamation. 
  The trouble I see in that is that the soils bacteria and other microbes 
that are beneficial need turning and nutrients in those piles.  If the soils 
are left with no work for two or three years, they lose their micro biota 
and it has to be artificially repaired with manure and fertilizer when it is 
ground applied in reclamation.

Most of the minerals operations that go back to previously mined sites also 
have the advantage of being able to clean up the bad reclamation jobs of the 
old operations.  The old timers did not have any sort of an idea that they 
could reclaim ground or how to do so even if they had wanted to.  We know 
better now and have been developing the science and the techniques for 
several decades.  The results are productive land following mining.

People tend to think of mines as the messes that were done back in the 
1950’s and earlier.  Those sorts of things are simply not allowed by permit 
any longer.  The people coming into leadership in mining now are those who 
grew up with the same environmental ethic as the rest of society.  We want 
to see the sites we work returned to productivity and see it as part and 
parcel of our job in any operation in which we are involved.

Phil Nisbet



>From: Janesta Carcich <janestacarcich at yahoo.com>
>To: Phil Nisbet <pcnisbet1 at hotmail.com>, vision2020 at moscow.com
>Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Shameless plug
>Date: Sun, 1 Jan 2006 16:34:16 -0800 (PST)
>
>Thank you for posting this, Phil. Your article was
>interesting.
>
>I can recall when Mr. Wendt first opened his shop, he
>has come a long way from then.
>
>If any of you haven't read either one, do! The Wendt
>pottery site has a lot of photos, with explintaions
>how they mine the clay. I was impressed how much he
>respects the land, bringing it back to it's natural
>state when his mining is complete.
>
>I also like that he only mines for two months of the
>year. I could not imagine a huge mine like the one
>somone wanted to do a while back.
>
>Thanks for posting the link to Wendt Pottery, it was
>fun to see the processes of creating.
>
>Janesta
>
>--- Phil Nisbet <pcnisbet1 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > OK, Nick and others have done it, so I shall do the
> > same.  This is a
> > shameless plug for all of you to take a look at my
> > artile on New West;
> >
> > http://www.newwest.net/index.php/main/article/5056/
> >
> > And by the by, get thee hence and check out Mike
> > Wendt's shop if you get a
> > chance, http://www.wendtpottery.com/
> >
> > Hey I own a fair number of pieces and other local
> > potters will tell you,
> > Mike does for all of them as well.
> >
> > Support your local potters.
> >
> > Phil Nisbet
> >
> >
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>
>
>Janesta Carcich
>
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